Oroborus
by NoodleNeko
Summary: The Oroborus...the dragon eating it's tail. A symbol of life's never ending circle, a balance of life everlasting and constant. With life in Stark and Arcadia hanging by a thread, and the Balance at stake, what will become of those who lived and died...
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Notes: Hello all. I'm posting some changes to the story, and I also wanted to correct some of the spelling errors I had made before. The only really big difference here is now this takes place between the time of April's "death" and the incident with the dreamers/tower being used. I would have left it the way it was, but I was not sure of the tower's significance yet, and wanted to make sure I made the story as believable as possible. This one is also more in-keeping with the story chapter I have posted on SA, though I have not edited the part about the tower. -NoodleNeko_

I. THE RESCUE

1.

Night had descended. Though the rest of the world was sleeping, the forests of Marcuria were awake and alive with activity. The evening travelers, mostly small rodents and night-birds, had come out of hiding to search for their meals. Combined with the mist and the smell of old earth; the mysterious, yet normal noises of the forest. Bushes rustled, branches snapped. The voices of human travelers could also be heard, and if one looked, one might see the flickering glow of camp lanterns. But no one did look. No one expected these campers to be here. And the voices of the humans, raised in anger instead of joy, would have discouraged any passersby from investigating.

Of course the men were angry; they had suffered an alarming defeat. The Apostle had, whether unknowingly or no, brought his people right to them, and many had been killed. So it was no surprise that those who survived were furious and wanted immediately to go into battle with the Azadi.

"How will you keep them at bay, in the meantime? They want nothing more than to seek revenge against them. You will need more than words to keep them from storming off to another defeat." Ever the voice of reason, Tatya was. Though her anger could rival that of many of the men who walked the rebel's path, she made the attempt to control herself when all the others wanted to confront certain death. She felt it was dangerous to use anger on the battlefield. But then, she also felt that mercy was only something to show to the weak. Well contained, she was; but merciless. How fortunate to her leader that she also believed in what the rebels were doing, and that she always followed orders.

"Let me concern myself with that. Your only concern now is to bring him to me alive."

Tatya regarded her leader coolly, and nodded. She had no reason to question her mission, nor did she. It was not up to her what her leader did with the Apostle whence he was brought here. It didn't even matter to her who the man was. And why should it? Tatya had no desire to lead the rebels, so why would any of it concern her?

Only Elias objected. "Alive? You want us to bring that Azadi to you alive!" He clenched his hands into fists and punched the tree he had been leaning against while he had been listening to their orders. "That Azadi scum is the reason we are so low in ranks, and you want us to risk our necks going into enemy territory to bring him back! Their capital will be crawling with soldiers who would like nothing more than to see the rest of us laid down beside our brothers!"

Tatya's eyes narrowed as she looked at Elias with disgust, her feline tail snapping once for punctuation. "The more your jaw moves the more you sound like a traitor."

Their leader did not bother to turn, but merely raised a hand and gave it a dismissive wave. "Let it alone, Tatya." A sigh emerged from the figure covered in the shadows of the forest canopy. "You have your orders, Elias." The words had a cold, hard edge to them. "Tatya is in charge. Disobey her orders, and she has my permission to leave you behind."

Elias gritted his teeth and huffed, then turned his attentions on Tatya, glaring at her. There had been a rivalry there since just after the incident, when Tatya had been 'promoted' to Second, bypassing Elias. Though Elias was Tatya's senior, the leader had chosen her for her grace under pressure, and for her over-all skill in espionage and battle. Of the two, it was obvious who their leader trusted more. Many of the men also believed that Tatya had been promoted to re-pay the debt of saving the leader's life; but Tatya had done the best she could to squash those rumors.

"You can choose one other person for this mission, who ever you like. A shipment of extra supplies will be sent to Sadir soon after you arrive. Try to keep the Azadi body-count to a minimum, to attract less attention, but don't risk getting yourself killed in the process. Bringing the Apostle to me is important, but your lives take top priority. You are dismissed."

Tatya sunk into a graceful bow, though her leader could not see her, and then straightened to glare at Elias. "Understood."

Putting the palm of her hand in the small of Elias' back, she gave him a rough shove in the direction of camp, the expression of disgust still on her face. Though Tatya was good at controlling herself, there were some people that roused her anger better than others. Elias was only one of them, but they had more contact with one another because their leader often felt that Elias couldn't be trusted, and assigned Tatya to shadow him on many missions. And their leader was not the only one who had not trusted Elias; it had come into question, just after the attack on the swamp, if Elias had been the one to bring the Azadi down upon them and not the Apostle. Tatya had come to think of him as a pathetic worm, and while she did not think him capable of that level of treachery, she did not trust him with information she thought too important to lose.

"You are such a little stooge." Elias muttered, jerking free of Tatya's hand when they were out of eyesight and earshot, and gesturing angrily with his hands. "Always doing exactly what you're told. You never question. Can you not think for yourself? You're not so different from that Apostle -a mindless zombie!"

"Fool. It would give me the greatest pleasure to see you left in Azadi territory to fend for yourself. You were the one who was in-sighting the others to storm into enemy territory unprepared. You search out; you desire conflict too much. If you intend to search out your own destruction, do it by yourself, and don't take what's left of this rebellion with you."

"And you speak of peace, yet you willingly trod off to Sadir, into the lion's den, to rescue someone who is the cause for the deaths of many innocent women and children." He stopped in front of her and whirled, pointing an index finger at her face. "You and I are no different!"

Tatya's eyes narrowed and she grabbed Elias' index finger and bent it upward. It gave a snap, and he let out a cry of surprise and pain. Clutching his finger, he bawled obscenities at her.

"You b-"

Tatya grabbed him by the neck and slammed him against a nearby tree, moving her face close in so that they were nose to nose. Her eyes glowed unnaturally in the dark, as if the anger inside her was fire; her voice came out as a low rumbling growl. "That was just a warning. Don't make this any more difficult than you have to, Elias. You wouldn't like the results." Pulling him forward slightly, she slammed him against the tree again, and then turned and stormed into the clearing that encased the rebel camp.

Upon entering, she passed a man who had been watching the entire scene from the edge of the camp, leaning against a tree with an amused smirk on his face. Tatya's expression remained un-amused, and she glared at him a little as she passed him.

"Kirin, you are with us." Tatya spoke to the man in an official tone as she made her way to the main tent.

Kirin shook his head noticeably as he watched Elias coddling his broken index finger. Normally, it was important for him to inform the leader when moral broke within the ranks, but in such cases, Kirin felt it was better to let things go. It had nothing to do with Tatya being his superior, though she was. A more likely reason was because those few that had survived the battle in the swamp with the Azadi, those who had gotten to know Tatya, knew that when things went bad, Tatya would do her best for her people. And those who knew this also realized that, to double-cross Tatya...meant death.

2.

_What have I done?_

The images recycled themselves in Kian's head, preoccupying his mind with the mistakes that he had made. No. Not mistakes...decisions; and how easy it was to confuse the two. It had happened so quickly. In so little time, he began to question his own beliefs, question his mission. He began to toss aside his trust in the Azadi, putting his faith in the Goddess alone. These were only traitorous actions in the eyes of the people, not in the eyes of the Goddess. If they had been traitorous in her eyes...she would not have brought them together. April. Even now, he could still see her face. The shock -the defiance that had been in her eyes when she had learned that he was sent to kill her- the 'Scorpion'. No. Meeting April had not been a mistake. It had been fate. The memories of their first meeting, of April's passionate words in opposition to all that he believed had changed him so much in so little time. Those words had opened his eyes. The only mistake he had made in this madness was to become blind to the treachery that lurked just at his back.

Vamon. The tyrant had murdered defenseless, innocent women and children, and called them terrorists simply because they lived in a rebel camp. Even as it happened he told himself that this could not be the will of the Six. It could not be the will of the Goddess, that these people be slaughtered like cattle. He continued to tell himself that Vamon had come on his own; had done such atrocities of his own free will; and that the Six would see to his punishment in time.

But this had not occurred. The Six had denied Kian counsel, so he could not explain his actions nor tell what he believed to be the truth. Again, he blamed Vamon. There was very little room for doubt in Kian's mind that Vamon had poisoned the Six towards him, and because of this, he knew that no matter what he said, it would fall on deaf ears. There would be no fair trial.

And yet, in part Kian felt it was what he deserved. After all, he had spouted off his change of heart to 'the enemy' like a love-sick school-boy, vocally questioned everything he believed in, told her he would take a stand and undo the injustices that his people had made, and then he stood aside and let Vamon's men kill her in cold blood, and leave her to die in the swamp.

He wanted to weep; to scream; to yell her name out loud. He had given up his beliefs, and then he had forsaken what had freed his mind of its prison. He wanted to give up everything and turn back the time, to try again.

But he had no tears to weep with, no voice to scream or call her name, and no magic in the world could ever undo what he had done. She was lost, and soon his trial would come, and he would join her in the ground.

_Goddess forgive me, what have I done..._

3.

Infiltrating Sadir, the capital of the Azadi, had not been as difficult as one might have believed. However, moving around in Sadir was not quite so easy. Though rumors traveled fast that the 'traitorous rebels' had been defeated, and their leader killed, guards were still posted around almost every corner, waiting to catch someone acting against the Azadi's best interests. At a moments notice they were prepared to arrest non-believers, magic users, and what Tatya had come to call the 'abnormals'. These abnormals were people who had no control of what they were, but could not be classified as Humans, at least from the Azadi's point of view. And like all the others, they were lumped into the category of an undesirable; to be humiliated, berated, and punished. They witnessed all the pain in the world, just because they existed. This thought only served to make Tatya bitter, and she pushed it aside to focus on the task at hand.

Of all of them, Kirin and Elias had had a much easier time moving about in Azadi territory without being suspect. They could more easily take the appearance of soldiers, and so they were put in charge of guarding the prison where the Apostle was being held. This was an important task, and Tatya stressed to Kirin that he needed to make sure Elias stayed by his side and did not stray somewhere where he might be distracted from his mission.

Breaking into the prison would have been too difficult, so the three would be forced to wait until the official day of the trial, when the Apostle would be executed, to break him free. They used the extra time they had to plan for contingencies, find alternate manners of escape, and to gain reconnaissance of the Azadi's other plans. There was plenty of rumors and gossip to be had. Talk of the rebels being destroyed, and rumors about what the tower in Marcuria was for were to be found in every market and on every street corner. Tatya disregarded most of these stories as mere speculation, and would grant them very little weight. Elias had insisted that these rumors were relevant, and that they should try to find more information, but Tatya had squashed that idea as soon as it had been broached; reminding them that they had a mission to fulfill, and they were not going to pay attention to idle gossip and get side-tracked. She said that if it was important, it would be researched later, under less dangerous situations. The one rumor that piqued Tatya's interest was those of Benrime Saliman. From what Tatya had been told- Benrime had been the keeper of the Journeyman Inn, and a compatriot to the rebels until the Azadi had caught her and imprisoned her. Word was getting around that Benrime was still at Friar's Keep, a place in Marcuria that had been converted into a prison for those who were waiting to be sent to Sadir. There was no doubt in Tatya's mind that the traveling plans had changed at the capture of the Apostle, and Benrime's trip to Sadir had been postponed in order to ship a more important prisoner. Tatya filed away this information in order to inform her leader later.

Day after day they waited. Because neither Kirin nor Tatya completely trusted Elias, it was left up to Kirin to gather intelligence about their enemy, and he did fairly well. Over the next couple of days, they had gained more insight into the way the prison worked, Kirin had managed to obtain the proper identification for himself and Elias for their part in the mission, and they had received more information on the Azadi. These were all good developments, Tatya believed. The day of the Apostle's trial and execution were closing in fast.

During their preparations, Elias had voiced his concerns on numerous occasions, and also expressed a desire to go home. This attitude only made Tatya more determined to carry out the mission, and instilled in Kirin a feeling of disgust towards his comrade. Though Kirin knew it was likely that these little lapses of judgment would not go unreported by Tatya, it still irritated him that they had brought such a coward into the lion's den.

When the day arrived, Tatya had already begun to get the sinking feeling things were not going to go exactly as planned. The Six had decided the execution would be public, adding an entirely new list of problems to an already dangerous situation. Crowds of innocents would not only increase the chances of them being recalled later, but it also made the use of their weapons more risky. The only advantage presented by the presence of a crowd would be that, in the panic, the three and their captive could -in theory- escape without drawing as much attention. They were forced to resort to cloaks, and carrying smaller, less noticeable weapons. Something had also made the Azadi decide to add to their security the day before, forcing the three to remain indoors and out of sight most of the day to avoid being noticed. Because of this, they did not quite have all the supplies that they had needed, because they were unable to get to ship that carried had their cargo. Tatya was not so worried about this, but it seemed to be bothering her comrades unnecessarily.

"We shouldn't be doing this...we're not prepared enough." Elias murmured as the three walked slowly along the stone pathway in the direction of the square, where the execution was to be held. He pulled his cloak about him tighter and looked about self-consciously.

Tatya had to grit her teeth to keep from yelling at him. The fool was practically trembling in his shoes, and in his nervousness he was more likely to make a mistake that would get them killed.

"Would you like to explain to our superior why he was killed under our very nose?" Kirin hissed at him quietly. "And stop fidgeting. You will get us noticed."

Tatya frowned and kept her eyes forward, not bothering to look at the other two. "We stick with the plan." Her pace did not falter, and the others had to try to catch up. She had decided that it was important for her to be single-minded in her purpose, and that purpose was the mission.

"And if the plan backfires?" Elias hissed quietly in retort, gesturing with his hands in an attempt to explain what he meant, bringing his splinted index finger across his neck from one ear to the other.

Tatya and Kirin both knew that he wasn't concerned about the Apostle at all; he wasn't worried about the mission failing. He was worried about the possibility of his own death.

_Coward_, Kirin thought with disgust. He knew that Tatya would have agreed, but still kept it to himself.

"Then we leave you and take him instead." Tatya remarked coolly.

Kirin grinned and suppressed a chuckle. He knew that no matter what happened- Tatya would do her best to succeed at this mission, even if it meant forsaking one of her own comrades to do it. This should have disheartened Kirin, because it meant that -he two- was expendable. And yet, if he had been in her position, he would have done the same thing.

Elias clenched his teeth, and said no more.

Kirin and Elias split off from Tatya just before the courtyard and headed in the direction of the prison to take their positions as accompanying guards. They would take the place of the soldiers leading the prisoner out, giving them close access to the prisoner when the time came. Tatya, meanwhile, went to the courtyard and got into her own position towards the front. It took her a moment to push her way through the already growing crowd. _What is people's fascinations with death_, Tatya wondered. She shook her head, pointed her eyes straight forward, and tried to look like so many of the other eager faces that had come to watch a man die.

_A man persecuted for his beliefs. How ironic that he had once been one of the persecutors himself_. Tatya thought as she looked upon the wooden platform where the Apostle was to be executed. She supposed that, one day, fate had something in store for everyone. It was only luck that their leader had an interest to talk to the man, and wanted him brought back alive. _To think how many un-deserving people had died on this same platform, with no such luck to protect them_. Tatya was torn between the belief that the Apostle was responsible for the demise of so many innocents, and the other part of her that believed that he was not to be blamed. His faith in his people had faltered, and he had come to the realization that the path of the Azadi was one of darkness. It was not for him to decide when he came to this belief. The man cannot be blamed for the timing in which his awakening occurred, an awakening that allowed his enemy's plots to go unnoticed. That, at least, is not his fault.

A tugging at her cloak caused her to glance over her shoulder, to see a girl who was trying to look under her cloak for something. The girl looked up at her and giggled, smiling up at Tatya. She could not be more than five years old. _What had she been doing looking under her cloak?_ The sudden realization made Tatya grit her teeth slightly. She had been concentrating so hard on looking like she was meant to be there that she had forgotten about her tail. Quickly, she curled the furry, cat-like tail out of sight. This caused the girl to shriek and giggle, and the girl reached for Tatya's tail, up under the cloak. Tatya glanced to the nearest adult, who she believed was the mother, with an awkward smile.

"Is this your daughter?"

The woman blinked at Tatya, and then immediately took notice. "Oh, by the Six and the Goddess! Lara... what are you doing to that poor woman? Let go of her cloak and come here at once. I'm terribly sorry." She gently tugged on the girl's wrist until little Lara relented, and let go of Tatya's cloak. "Once again, I'm terribly sorry. She's not usually like this."

Tatya smiled softly and chuckled, shaking her head. "Quite alright. She's just curious." Turning to face forward again, she couldn't help but wonder what kind of monster would bring a child to an event like this. _What kind of mother would subject their child to death at such a young age?_

She had been distracted, and when she looked up she saw that the prisoner was being led to the platform. Chewing on her lip, she observed the guards on either side of him carefully, and held back a sigh of relief. So far, everything had gone according to plan. The two guards were her comrades, Kirin and Elias.

4.

Too easy; it had almost been too easy. They had slipped up on the two guards outside the Apostle's door without any trouble at all; overpowered them, hid the unconscious bodies, and took their places without a moment's lapse. The thought of how easy this had been made Kirin slightly worried, but it helped to clear up Elias' concerns; to the point that it made him almost over-confident. They had been instructed by Tatya before putting the plan into effect, that neither one of them should speak to the prisoner; so they remained in uncomfortable silence. As practiced, they blind-folded the prisoner, and began leading him out to the square and the platform.

Kirin could not help being surprised at how docile the subject was being. Had he given up so completely that he was prepared to die for his cause? This sent a surge of admiration through Kirin. To be able to face death without fear was something not everyone was capable of. Even now, after all Kirin had seen, deep inside him he still feared death.

As they reached the stairs to the platform, Kirin had to prevent himself from looking at the audience and searching for Tatya's form in the crowd. Somehow, he knew she'd be there, even without looking at her. Kirin had always been one of her staunch supporters, standing by her side even when the rest of the rebels were ready to disregard her orders. It wasn't because Tatya was Second; it wasn't because he feared her wrath. Something in her presence demanded trust and unyielding devotion. Some where frightened by her demeanor, and it forced them to fight. Kirin had given into these feelings of kin-ship with Tatya easily, accepting her as his superior, but also looking upon her as a colleague, comrade, and friend. Because of this, he felt that she could be trusted. He knew that she would always keep her word. And her word, like that of the leader, was the only thing that mattered to him.

When they reached the center of the platform, they forced the prisoner to his knees behind the executioner's block. Kirin roughly pushed the prisoner's head against the top of the wooden block. It had to be as real as possible. Kirin's heart began to pound in his chest as a priest began to spout what might have been a prayer for the dead.

Facing forward, now Kirin took his opportunity to scan the crowd quickly for her face. There! One row behind the front row, and off to the left, just as they had planned. She was looking back at him intensely, and it took him a moment to realize she had mouthed something at him. At first, he could not make it out, but after she mouthed it a second time he had got it.

_When the trial is over. No sooner._

Giving a slight nod, he paid attention to the sermon that spouted from the priests lips. It almost made him sick to hear such tripe. They preached peace, but they were killing one of their own in a public execution, and killing him only for questioning their beliefs. Though this man was the enemy, Kirin couldn't help but feel a kin-ship towards him, and a responsibility to see him come out of this unscathed. It was more than a mission. This man was no different from them, anymore.

After the prayer, the priest read the prisoner's list of crimes, which was not long. People in the audience yelled curses at him and flung what might have been animal dung. Kirin had to bite his tongue to keep from shouting back at them. Peaceful people, indeed.

"These are your charges, Kian Alvane of Sadir. How do you plead?"

The prisoner did not speak quickly, and Kirin was forced to jab him with the toe of his boot. He felt disgusted with himself in this costume of a Azadi soldier, harassing the prisoner in his last moments before death, but Tatya had insisted it be real.

"Guilty."

_Guilty?_ Kirin could barely contain himself. The lack of emotion in the man's voice spoke of his true feelings. He was not afraid of death because he felt it was not only inevitable, but because it was deserved.

As the executioner lifted his axe to bring it down upon the prisoner's neck, Kirin called out in a foreign tongue, above the din of the crowd; in words only his comrades would understand. Kirin grabbed the collar of the prisoner and physically pulled him out of the way just in time to miss the executioner's swinging axe as it connected into the wood of the block. The executioner halted in shock, and looked at Kirin, and attempted to pull up on his axe to dislodge it. Elias went into action out of instinct alone; pulled his own sword from its sheath quickly and used the flat side against the executioner's face. The panicked priest shielded himself from a possible attack, and when he moved to escape the fight that was ensuing on the platform, fell off the edge into the crowd beneath, which had become a roaring sea of frantic people.

Kirin drew his own weapon and fended off guards as they came at him, standing beside the prisoner in order to protect him from attack. The Apostle could not remove his blind-fold because his hands were bound behind him, yet he looked around in an attempt to discern -from the racket- what exactly was going on around him. Quickly glancing out into the frenzy of motion below, Kirin could no longer see Tatya in the crowd, but he knew she was near, waiting for her chance to put the rest of the plan into action.

_Come on, Tatya_, he thought, _we don't have much time._

5.

Now!

Kirin's shout had sent Tatya into action. Diving and weaving in between running civilians, she pulled her own dual short swords and fended off a guard as he tried to restrain her, and then another. The panic of the crowd gave her some cover to move in, and she tried to make her way closer to the platform in order to aid her comrades.

Suddenly, something wrapped around her ankle and nearly sent her face first into the flagstones; she was barely able to catch herself just in time. Looking back over her shoulder, she could see the tip of a whip wrapped around her ankle, and at the other end of the whip, one very arrogant and over-confident Azadi soldier. Tatya grinned menacingly, rolled over, and as she did so, cut the whip with one of her swords. Rolling onto her back, she flipped back up to her feet as the soldier came after her with his hands, having decided the whip was ineffective while she still had her weapons. Spinning her blades around in her hands with the ease of someone who had done this many times, she blocked the man's fists. While she was fending him off, he called for one of his friends, who came running to even the score. Gritting her teeth, she swung on her heel and caught the soldier she had been fighting in the head with her other heel as she arched her leg through the air. Just as the other soldier was within swinging distance with his sword, she thrust one of her blades into one soldier, and the other into the other coming at her from behind. Both fell away like slices of fruit cut by a sharp knife.

"Tatya!" Kirin called aloud again.

"Confounded woman! What are you waiting for!" Elias also yelled over the din.

Turning in the direction of her comrades, she nodded. Sheathing her weapons, she pulled a round vial from her pocket, and held it tight in her hands, brandishing above her head to get as many Azadi soldier's attentions as possible. She shouted once in the language that Kirin had used earlier.

_Cover!_

The shout was to warn her comrades of what was coming; Tatya tossed the vial onto the stones of the square, closing her eyes tight as she did so. She could almost see the lights intensity even with her eyes closed. She waited until the bright light had completely faded before opening them; she saw that Kirin and Elias where already moving in the direction of the less obvious escape route that they had chosen. Rushing to catch up with them, she tossed another one of the same vials behind her, and a smoke vial as well, to ward off pursuit. There was another bright flash of light, not as dangerous to her and her comrades because they were running away from it, and the smoke vial began to release heavy clouds of gray dust and smoke that would hide their escape.

They moved faster than they ever had, taking corridor after corridor, hiding behind pillars when a soldier was noticed nearby, and down and up small passage ways and staircases. During this time, the ex-Apostle to the Azadi put up minor struggles, pulling out of their grips, trying to undo his bonds, and shouting questions at them so loudly that they were becoming concerned might get them caught. As they turned one corner, and were getting closer to safety, Tatya's nerves had had enough.

"What is this?" Kian hollered. "Who are you people?"

Tatya gritted her teeth, practically skidded from a run to a stop, grabbed the man by the neck as he was being dragged around the corner by Kirin, and flung him against the stone wall much the same way that she had done to Elias some days earlier. Kirin could tell just by the expression on his face as he hit the wall that it had hurt, but then, Tatya had uncommon strength.

"If you don't shut up I'm going to slit you from ear to ear, you got that?" She hissed quietly.

Kirin and Elias watched on quietly as Tatya held the man pinned against the wall, blind-fold still over the man's face. There was no doubt in either of the comrade's minds that she would do exactly what she said if she was pushed much further, and they doubted that the Apostle would think she was lying either. The Apostle's jaw tightened visibly, and it was not hard to see that he had more to say, but he remained silent and kept it to himself. Pulling him away from the wall by his neck again, not attempting to be gentle, Tatya spun him in the direction of their escape route and shoved him forward, almost shoving him into Elias.

"You two, make sure he keeps up."

During their escape they were only forced to pacify two guards, which was some relief to Kirin, though he would not have admitted this to the others. From the sounds of chaos in the distance, the guards were still trying to figure out what had occurred, and had not seen the direction that the four had gone in.

Only when they reached the outside of the city did Tatya breathe a sigh of relief, and stopped to rest temporarily while they gathered their things. Everything had gone as planned, so far. They had the prisoner, and they had escaped the city without being followed. She knew that the rebels would be proud. For the first time since the defeat in the swamps, the rebellion had struck a victory.

Tatya watched as the other two packed their small camp and prepared for the return to Marcuria. They all knew it would be several days over ground, then over sea, and then over ground again to make it to Marcuria's forests; that they could still easily be caught by the Azadi during that time. They would have to avoid large cities for fear that a stray soldier or two would see the Apostle and know of the escape. Two soldiers were nothing to worry about, but a message could send for an army that would crush what was left of the rebellion like a bug. The journey home would be even more treacherous than their mission in Sadir, and one slip could mean complete failure.

"Where are you taking me?" the Apostle demanded. His blindfold and binds had been removed by Kirin when they had reached the place where their mounts had been left to rest. Even though he was unbound, Kirin knew that the prisoner would not try his luck against three armed fighters who had had the courage to walk into Sadir and steal him from his own execution. "Who are you?"

"You ask a lot of questions for someone who was about to die, Apostle." Tatya murmured, tugging at the strings on her own pack. She didn't even bother to look at the man. They had risked their lives to come here and rescue him in the name of their leader, and rather than being grateful to them, he was shouting questions at them. Tatya's patience was wearing thin.

"I have a right to an answer." He reached out and grasped her upper arm roughly.

Tatya whirled to glare at him. "Unhand me."

"I will have an answer." The Apostle's voice was determined, and there was an edge to it.

Seeing this, Kirin and Elias both reached for their weapons. Kirin had suddenly begun to second guess himself. _Could this man really be foolish enough to attack one of us unarmed?_

"I don't think you have the right, and you won't." The words had a ring of finality, and the expression on her face was unmistakable. She would not be challenged. "You will find out all that you need to know when the time comes, and no sooner. Do not try my patience, Apostle. I have little left, and it is wearing thin where you are concerned." She shook her arm free of his grip, and stormed over to her mount, a somewhat sad-looking creature called an elgwan. "Kirin, he rides with you. And if he gives you any trouble at all...feel free to help him sleep a little."

Kirin nodded in response, and did as he was told. _This is going to be a long journey. _Was his only thought as they set off for home.

6.

_Two days and no sign of the Azadi...I wonder what's keeping them?_

Tatya kept her thoughts to herself, though she hardly needed to. Like so many times before, it was not difficult for her to predict that her comrades were all wondering the same thing. And as if knowing them wasn't enough, Elias had been vocal enough about it for all of them. Tatya could see that the fact that they had seen a lack in the Azadi's actions made Kirin edgy, but Elias seemed to be the most nervous of the three of them. Coward that he was; he was constantly checking his back. He looked behind himself so frequently that Tatya had decided only two hours out to put him at the tail end of their group, where he could not slow them down further. She made it clear to him that if he fell too far behind, no one would wait for him to catch up.

"He's up to something. I can smell it." Kirin muttered quietly to Tatya, glancing at Elias from the corner of his eye.

She eyed Elias, and then the Apostle who sat behind Kirin on his elgwan. "Which one are you referring to?" She remarked with a humorous tone to her voice. "One is a coward, the other a traitor to his people. Neither one of them is trustworthy."

Kirin could hear the cynical tone that lay just beneath the humor in her voice, and it irritated him. _How could she be so nonchalant about this?_ "You know which one I'm talking about." Kirin hissed under his breath.

Tatya gritted her teeth as she caught sight of the prisoner with a small, amused smile out of the corner of her eye. At that moment, she wondered if he knew how lucky he was she had orders not to do him harm. Doing him harm had come to her mind more than once in these last few days, starting with the difficulties he had given them in Sadir and on until the present. Controlling her anger, she glanced back to Elias. "We will cross that bridge when we come to it." She murmured, and urged her mount ahead to escape Kirin's concerns and the prisoner's obvious amusement.

"Is she always like that?"

Kirin shook his head in disapproval at Tatya's words, and glanced over his shoulder at the prisoner to get a look at his face, trying to understand exactly what the prisoner hoped to glean from that question. He had been doing his level best to insight Tatya's anger over the last few days, and it worried Kirin. They had orders not to harm the Apostle, but how much longer would Tatya put up with him before she did something about it? "Do yourself a favor. She's not someone to be tangled with. When you get a chance... ask Elias about his finger."

The Apostle arched an eyebrow, and seemed to be turning what Kirin had said over and over in his mind, as if trying to make sense of it all. Although he should not have been amused by it, the image of Tatya breaking Elias' finger popped into his head and a chuckle escaped him. He had had it coming.

Elias had managed to catch up to Kirin's mount, and eyed Kian with disfavor. "I don't know, Kirin. Was he really an Apostle?"

"She must not have much of a leader if you doubt her every word." The prisoner remarked, looking back over his shoulder. "You don't seem to have the heart of a warrior; by the way you look over your shoulder so often. Yet I don't question your leader when she says you are."

Kirin could not smother a grin, and a chuckle. "Elias, a warrior? That's a new one. I seem to remember someone once calling him a 'rebel without a clue'?" Another hearty chuckle escaped him. "And Tatya is not our leader."

"When Tatya becomes leader, I'll fall on my sword." Elias muttered bitterly, grinding his teeth together in such a way that it made his lower jaw jut out in an unattractive manner. The idea of Tatya taking over the position as head of the rebellion brought the worst out of him, and he muttered a curse just at the thought of it.

Kirin arched a brow in interest. "Promise?"

This time, it was the Apostle that suppressed a grin. He could already tell that this would continue on for days, and knew that he had better get used to it. Being unarmed, and with his wrists bound behind his back to prevent his escape, there was little he could do. And even if he did escape these strangers; to what end? The Azadi would hunt him down and kill him. April Ryan was dead. The rebels were gone. These strangers who held him captive were all that was left. Would they kill him? Would they let him go? Only time would tell.

7.

Many more days had gone by, and still no sign of the Azadi. They had only a few more hours to the shores that would take them to Marcuria, but night had fallen before they could reach their destination, so they had stopped for the night outside of the smaller harbor town, to rest. Elias had argued many times that this route was the longer way to Marcuria, and that the shorter distance from closer to Sadir would have been quicker, but Tatya and Kirin both preferred the safer route, and chose to ignore him, Now that they were closing in on their destination, Elias had recognized that he had lost the battle, and spoke no more about it.

Tatya sat tending the small fire that Kirin had started at dusk. Kirin had chosen a space on the ground, set up his sleeping blanket, and had turned his back to the fire so that he could rest; while Elias had wandered off under the premise of finding something to eat. Normally, Tatya would have been displeased to see her comrades so lax about their safety, but she let it pass. They had all been through so much before and after the Azadi attack in the swamp, that relaxation had become a luxury they normally could not afford. And so, she let it go. Also, she had too much on her mind already to worry about looking after two full adults. These were soldiers, not children. If they could not care for themselves, they should not have joined the rebellion. It was difficult to be alone with her thoughts, and even now she was not completely alone, their 'prisoner' sat across from her, and was no doubt watching, as if trying to analyze and figure out her next move.

A small part of her felt badly for Kirin and Elias. So much of this mission, they had had to take on faith. Tatya had been the only one that had seen the entire deck of cards, the only one who knew the whole story. Why the Apostle was so important to the leader. Though the leader had not admitted it up front, it was obvious to her that one reason behind the retrieval of this prisoner of the Azadi was for the purpose of re-building the rebellion. This man had a great deal of information that could help the rebels. Their leader though that, with the threat of death hanging over his head, he would be much more willing to help the opposition. Though Tatya disagreed with the idea of this, she had never bothered to voice her opinions to her superior. There was more to this mission than simple politics, and Tatya knew it. But it was not her right to say.

The crack of a twig coming from nearby jolted her from her thoughts, and she listened intently. Normally, she might have dismissed the sound as an animal, or maybe just a branch falling from a tree, but when the sound came again, she knew it was not so. The tread was far too heavy-too loud- to be made by an animal; and far too methodical. Whatever it was, it was definitely human. There was only one conclusion to be had.

"Kirin..." Tatya whispered.

She looked at him to see his back had stiffened. He had not been deeply enough in sleep to miss the sound, and he too was reacting to it with the instincts of the battle-driven fighter that war had molded him into.

"Elias?" He whispered back.

Tatya did not answer. She did not have to; she could tell by the way that he had asked the question that he himself did not believe it to be Elias. As Kirin slowly reached for his sword, Tatya had already pulled twin daggers from her boots, silently cursing herself for not keeping her swords close by.

In an instant, five Azadi soldiers ambushed the encampment at the same time, each one shouting for the three to drop their weapons and surrender the prisoner. Tatya leapt into action, diving in front of the Apostle in order to protect the one that they had come so far and worked so hard to obtain. Kirin rolled onto his back and kicked up off the ground, slashing at the midsection of one of the soldiers with his sword. They had been instructed to keep the body count to a minimum, but they had also been told to survive. In this case, one rule overpowered the other, and survival became more important than the death of a few soldiers. As one came at Tatya, she reacted to defend herself, slicing at the man with her daggers. Meanwhile, Kirin tangled with three others.

_Where was the other soldier?_ Alarm seized at Tatya's heart. She was so focused on her fight that she had lost track of one. Turning slightly to see if she could locate him before he was able to get the jump on her, she saw something that she had never thought she'd see. The Apostle standing over an unconscious Azadi soldier, a rock clutched in his hands; hands that had once been tied behind his back.

_Could he have released himself from his bonds at any time?_ Tatya wondered.

The soldier she had been fighting swung his sword, and clipped her in the shoulder. The pain of the wound stung her, and she dropped a dagger so she could clutch the wound with her hand. The sight of her own blood -oozing slowly between her fingers- fueled the anger that she normally kept so well controlled, and she let out a sound that could only be described as a roar. Before the eyes of the soldier, Tatya's skin contorted slightly, and soft fur seemed to spring up from below the skin. Her eyes sharpened, the pupils went from round to ovular, her hands became claws, her teeth became fangs; ears that could only belong to a feline seemed almost to sprout from her head, and a feline tail lashed in anger. As this transformation took place before the soldier, the only name that could be given to the expression on the man's face would be terror. She leapt at him, and he never even got the chance to scream before one of her heavy hands, now almost paw-like, sent him hurtling into the depths of unconsciousness.

When Tatya looked around to see the location of the other three soldiers, Kirin had already had them dispatched.

"Tatya...I can't find Elias. He's either captured, or dead." Kirin said, coming back to the camp, having gone off in search of their comrade while Tatya was scaring and dispatching the soldier.

Tatya sighed and shook her head. No doubt he was in league with them the entire time. Tatya suddenly wished that they had kept one of the soldier's conscious for questioning. To see what all the Azadi knew about them. They would have to send a message on to the camp instead, and have it moved. Only this time, only Tatya would know the location of the camp. Until they reached home, no one could be trusted with where they were going.

"What...are you?"

They had almost forgotten about the Apostle. He had dropped the rock he had used as a weapon, and was staring at Tatya with a combination of fear and awe. Neither Kirin nor Tatya found this at all surprising, it had happened many times before when people had seen the true nature of Tatya's powers. Having calmed down, the cat-like features had already begun to fade. The fur sloughed off and fell away, the eyes, teeth, hands returned to normal. The feline ears seemed to recede. Only the tail remained.

Kirin dropped his sword and plunked down on the ground, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. "It's not an easy thing to explain. You see, no one really knows what she is."

Tatya sat down on a small boulder near the fire and picked up a stick, poking at it. Her expression was now calm, almost solemn. She breathed deeply, then spoke in a voice that still rumbled slightly. "I am the balance's example of why those of power should not practice in ignorance."

"I...don't understand."

"Look..." Kirin glanced at Tatya to get her approval, and only continued after she nodded. "We'll answer some of your questions, but you have to promise us something first."

"What is it that I must promise?"

"That you will not try to run, nor try to draw attention to us, and you will speak with our leader. After you speak to our leader, you will go free, as long as you do not speak of us again."

Kian found this request to be ridiculous, because he knew that if they wanted to, they could kill him whether he obeyed them or not. However, there was no reason to argue this point. Rather than argue at all, he solemnly agreed.

"You have my word."

Again, Kirin looked to Tatya for guidance, and she nodded.

"Well...here is what we can tell you..."

8.

Their conversation was cut short by the need to sleep, and so was not continued until the following day, after they had boarded a vessel bound for Marcuria. Now that they were on the sea, they did not have to be so greatly on their guard. Azadi air-ships could be easily spotted, and their chances of running into a soldier on a sea-fairing vessel were less likely. Even though Kian was being held as a captive and being led to the rebellion's new mystery leader, somehow he did not feel worried. The uncertainty of what lay in wait for him was no worse than standing trial for the crimes of being a terrorist. Though he knew that these two might kill him at any moment, he had been around them for long enough to see that killing him was not their main priority. If anything, it seemed to be protecting him. This both confused him and set him at ease. He forced himself not to worry about the future.

"So you're telling me someone is re-building the rebellion against the Azadi, and this new leader sent you into Sadir to retrieve me, even though I am to be blamed for leading the Azadi to the rebels and the death of 'the Scorpion'?"

"It doesn't sound sane, I know. You can take it or leave it, but it's the truth." Kirin said. "We were sent to Sadir to stop the execution and bring you back with us. Crazy as it sounds, it's the truth."

It was so much to absorb. Even without knowing the identity of Kirin and Tatya's mysterious leader, it was too much to take in. What would the rebels want with the Apostle that was responsible for the death of so many innocent people? What would they want with a man who was charged with treason against his own?

"How do I know I'm not walking into a death-trap?"

"You can't." said Tatya in a matter-of-fact tone. "Not for certain. So the real question is this: would you really rather go back and stand trial as a terrorist? Or die for something you actually had a hand in."

Kirin looked at Tatya with an expression of exasperation. "Is that your idea of getting him to trust us? Because you are failing... miserably."

"Sadly," Kian murmured. "She has a point. I am responsible for the deaths of a number of innocent women and children, people who had little to do with the rebellion other than that they were the wives, husbands, sons and daughters of those that the Azadi have labeled terrorists. If I died at the hands of the rebels, I would be dying for my crimes against those people. If I die at the hands of the Azadi, I die because Vamon has poisoned the Six against me, and they have named me a traitor."

"You honestly believe that this Vamon had to poison the Six against you?" Kirin asked. "Did it ever occur to you that the Six might be involved?"

Tatya shook her head at Kirin. "We are not here to attack his beliefs."

"Do you know what your leader even wants of me?"

Kirin shook his head solemnly. "We aren't allowed to talk about it. As I told you, Apostle, there are some things we cannot tell you."

"Please...I am an Apostle of the Azadi no more. Kian is fine." He sighed and looked out over the sea.

Kirin frowned and leaned against the side of the ship, looking down into the water. "We may not have everything in common, Kian; but there is one thing that none of us can ignore. We all know what it is like to be persecuted for being who we are."

"I never thought I would have to look at this from the other side. I was so enamored by my loyalty to the Azadi that I did not realize injustices were being committed. The way of the Goddess should not be forged with violence. I realized only too late that the path I was walking was the wrong one, and by the time I made my attempt to change...it cost lives."

"Faith is a good thing...but too much can weaken your own self, weaken your minds eye to what goes on around you. I think that's what happened to you. You became so involved with what you were being instructed to do, what you'd been taught, and what you were beginning to believe that you became blind. You were just too consumed to notice what was going on behind your back." Kirin said.

"The important thing is not to punish yourself continuously for something you cannot change. Yes, people died. But this is a war. People always die. It is sad to think about, but it is a normal condition of battle. You were tricked, and the cost was life. But that is not entirely your fault. Place the blame where it belongs, recognize your own faults. But move on. Dwelling on the past will not help your future." Tatya said. "I'm sure that, wherever April Ryan is, in spirit or otherwise, she does not place the blame entirely on you alone."

Though Kian wanted to believe that with all his being, he couldn't bring himself to cast aside his guilt. After all, his faith and his guilt were all he had left to cling to.

9.

The port of Marcuria was bustling with people; merchants collecting wares, people meeting family members returning from travels, and others seeing family off. Because of the large amounts of people moving back and forth on the docks, it was easy for the three of them to slip off of the vessel without bringing much attention to themselves. They wasted no time to get to the south gate, where they would exit to go to the forest outside of Marcuria, but getting past the south gate, as they found, would take some effort. Because the Journeyman Inn was closed down, due to Benrime's arrest, they had no other choice but to create some sort of diversion in order to gain passage outside of Marcuria. After many attempts at bribery, they finally managed to talk one of the merchants in the market place into creating the diversion required. This diversion gave them just enough time to exit Marcuria without being seen.

In order to protect against the possibility that they had been followed, they backtracked through the forests twice before heading into the deepest part, where the camp was located. Because Tatya had sent a message forward, Kirin was mildly confused at the change of location, and only Tatya knew where the camp was. This caused some irritation between Kirin and Tatya, because Kirin felt he had been left out of vital information and was upset that Tatya had felt it was important not to trust him. Only after Tatya explained the situation, did Kirin consent to the necessity. As they entered the camp, there were hoots, cheers, and questions about Elias. Tatya and Kirin were far too tired to really answer, but Tatya offered nods and hand shakes, and Kirin gave everyone who greeted them a wane smile. Kian followed behind them quietly, trying to quell the feelings of apprehension that clutched at him.

Some of the rebels were not as happy to see him, and there were hisses and some obscenities called at him. This caused Kirin some consternation, and aggravated Tatya enough to openly glare at them. Kirin pleaded with them to remain calm, but Tatya's glares in the direction of those responsible were far more effective at squashing the attitudes of the angry rebels.

After washing up and depositing their packs in their tents, they found a suitable sleeping arrangement for their 'prisoner', and left him to himself for some time, presumably to let him rest. However, he could not sleep. The questions that had gone unanswered and the unwelcoming sounds of hate from some of the rebels left him with too much on his mind to get a proper rest, and so Kian's time alone was sleepless.

It was nightfall when Tatya came to retrieve him.

"It's time."

He nodded, and followed Tatya around the encampment to a small tent off to one corner, under a large tree that shaded the tent from the moon's light. She held open the tent flap for him to step in, and followed him. It was black as pitch inside the tent, and Kian tried hard to force his eyes to adjust. Sounds could be heard inside the tent, the sounds of someone moving, and quiet whispers between two people. Then, the sound like wood being drug across wood, and a slight flicker of flame lit the room, but threw what the light did not reach into long shadows. Tatya held the burning stick up to the wick of a lamp, lighting it, and then replacing the glass cover. As she did this, the light increased enough that it was well enough to see inside the small tent. Kian's eyes had to re-adjust to the change in light before he could look about. It was a small but adequate sleeping tent, with a cot, a chair, and a small wooden table that held the lamp, but was also covered with maps and papers; presumably battle plans.

An expression of shock and surprise crossed Kian's face when he saw the one who was sitting in the small chair near the table, regarding him calmly.

"I thought I instructed you not to be rough with him, Tatya. He appears bruised." There was humor in that voice.

"It was unavoidable, I'm afraid. He put up quite a fight." Tatya explained, the same humorous tone in her voice. She had not left the tent, but stood at the entrance as if to prevent people from entering or exiting.

"You...you're alive." It came out as a choked whisper, as if his voice had caught in his throat.

Sitting before him, still bandaged from the wound that the Azadi soldier had given her, looking at him with an expression of weary but of one who had not quite given up just yet, was none other than April Ryan.

(To Be Continued...)


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: _The second chapter to Oroborus. Most of this was written on the fly, though part of it was planned out in advance. And yes, I know that there may not be much of April in this one, but you have to admit… there wasn't much of April in Dreamfall either… true? No worries, there will be more of her later I promise! -NoodleNeko_

I. THE TRAVELER

1.

"I can tell he has not agreed to assist in our endeavor." Tatya spoke quietly so not to break her leader's concentration on the maps before her. Her leader and the Apostle had talked alone for more than an hour, and at the end the debate had gotten a little heated, with the abrupt ending that came from the Apostle storming off to his tent. Tatya knew from this and from the demeanor of her leader that things had not gone well.

"He's certainly not going to make it easy on us, no. But then again, you didn't expect that, did you?" April murmured, chewing on her lower lip and staring down at the maps and reports on the table. She squinted in the faint light at one sheet of parchment, then another. "What I wouldn't give for a few fluorescent lights. And to think I used to think candles were romantic."

Tatya smiled softly at her remark. How long had they known each other? Not even a year, and yet they could read each other's minds as easily as reading a book. Maybe it helped that they had been to the same places, seen the same things.

"You have me dead to rights. I did not expect him to give up on his people so easily. And do you honestly miss the noise of all that technology?" She asked it, even though she knew the answer. She regarded April calmly while she watched her shift the question over and over in her mind; watching her expressions as thoughts ran through her mind, converged, and dispersed. No doubt April could feel those intense eyes upon her, but she did not react to it.

"You don't have to tell me that you don't miss it. I can't imagine how much trouble there must have been for you. But I was born there. That was my life…my home… until about ten years ago."

"Ha! You keep talking like that you're going to start showing your age."

Tatya glanced at the large black bird perched on the edge of the table. Crow, as April called him. Turning her attention back to April, she watched her leader wrestle with a possible retort, and then let it go, not breaking her focus from the plans. April and Crow had been friends for quite some time, and they were accustomed to one another. Tatya felt the bird was crude and disrespectful, which is why she didn't mind having him around. From the stories she had heard, he was no coward, and that was all she needed to know to approve of him. _He can be as rude as he likes, as long as he does not start taking on characteristics like that damned…_

"What of Elias?" April turned away from the maps and papers to look at her second in command. Her expression was all business.

"I have notified several men in the area to send messages if he is found. In the meantime, all we can do is await word." Tatya changed topics. "You know that if the Apostle does not agree to help us, the others will insist you have him killed so he cannot expose us again. The first fear in their minds will be that he will sacrifice them in order to protect himself."

"I'm aware of that. If that time comes, I'll think of something." She paused, taking in Tatya's obvious frown of concern. She knew how her Second would feel about this situation, and also knew that she wouldn't argue it. "You can voice your objections, if you like."

"My objections are my own, and they would not change your mind, so they are irrelevant. I trust you to do what is necessary, and I will not say that killing him will do us any good, because it won't. I am aware of the consequences of killing our only chance of beating the Azadi. Returning him to the Azadi will not assist us either. If we return him, they will not only know of our existence and come for us, but they will kill him as well. Therefore, we cannot kill him, and we cannot return him to his people. The big question will be… if he denies us his assistance: What can we do with him? As the leader, that decision falls on your shoulders. I am aware of that."

"Elias and Kirin are right. You're far too willing to follow." She shook her head and looked upon Tatya with disappointment. "If you have doubts, I want to hear them. If you have concerns, I want to know them. Just because I fought with Brynn on every decision does not mean I don't want to know what you think." She bit her lip after mentioning Brynn, bowed her head and shook it. "I don't need disobedience, but I don't want blind devotion either, you are permitted to have thoughts and feelings of your own, even ones of opposition."

"Your own men question you at every turn, so I beg your pardon if I find it strange that you would desire I question you as well. However, if that is your wish, I will tell you. I believe that bringing him here was dangerous, but keeping him here will be even more so. The men believe that- if by chance his capture was a farce, he could be a spy. Given that the execution was most likely real, this could mean one of two things. He is either legitimately an enemy of the Azadi, or they were willing to sacrifice one of their own on the off chance that someone would attempt to save him."

April shook her head. "I don't think this is a farce. And -though I wouldn't put it past them to kill one of their own if it meant to benefit them- I don't think they'd assassinate an Apostle for a chance at finding out if there were remnants of the rebellion left over."

"I agree, but the men will not. My only concern is that we cannot wait for the Apostle to make up his mind. We must be on our guard, and willing to bring him with us, by force, if necessary. I will concede to one of the men's fears. If we let him go, it will cost us."

"Then he will have to come with us."

Tatya nodded in agreement. "He will be angry. On the ship passing to Marcuria, Kirin promised he would be released after he conversed with you. We now know that this is not an option. This will have to be explained to him. There will also be the matter of keeping the men from exacting vengeance upon him."

"I will deal with that." She shook her head. "And this is not why I called upon you. I need a favor."

Tatya waited for her to explain herself, but she had stalled. Tatya turned her attention to the flame that burned from the lamp, watching it flicker and dance in the darkness that was slowly waning as the sun began to climb into the sky. She knew what April had called to ask her before she even uttered the words.

"You want me to travel to Stark."

April sighed, and though Tatya was not looking at her, she knew that her leader was nodding again.

"Yes. I need you to look into what is going on there, and to locate Zoe for me."

Tatya looked to April and gave a curt nod. She knew that this question was not easy one for April to ask for several reasons. One was that April desperately wished to go back to Stark herself, even if it was just to visit those she'd left behind. It was also because she knew how much Tatya hated the place, but Tatya suspected her hesitation was mainly due to the first issue and not really the second. Though Tatya knew that April cared, she also knew that April missed that life quite often.

"Tell me what I will need to learn, and how I will find her."

2.

Tatya shoved past Kirin as she exited the tent and made her way towards her own small lodging. Her mind was so filled with what April had told her and all the other aspects of her new mission, that she did not even notice he followed her, and was speaking to her. Inside her head were only the echoes of all that she had learned from her discussion with her leader, and the consequences of what would happen if she failed. She did not even take notice of Kirin until she had reached the tent, and Kirin grasped her upper arm gently to stop her from retreating into the small space. It was then that she blinked, noticed her surroundings, and looked directly at him for the first time since leaving the tent.

"What?"

"You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?"

She wasn't a fool, and she knew exactly what this was about by the tone of his voice. Tatya didn't even bother to answer him, but jerked her arm free of his grip and went inside the tent. Only the balance could know her frustration as he pushed his way into the tent after her, determined to finish the debate.

"Have you lost your senses? You and I both know what might happen if you go back there again. Why didn't you turn her down? I'm not asking you to be a coward, just to think before you act."

Tatya glared at him, and pushed him out of the way to retrieve a small trunk that sat in the corner. "You are far too concerned with covering my back, Kirin. I lived in that place for a long time before we met, and for quite some time afterward. I was as comfortable with my abilities then as I am now, in fact more so. Your concern is touching, but it is un-needed."

"The last time I saw you shift you were exhausted for two days afterward. You could barely move a muscle."

"If I remember correctly, I was exhausted because I had to attempt to keep you from slipping into limbo. Do you have any idea what could have happened to you? You feel free to chastise me about my decisions and yet you cannot even put any effort into your own." She shook her head. "There is no way you can convince me to change my mind, Kirin. No one else can take on this mission; it has to be me. So there is no point in arguing with me. My mind is set. And don't make an attempt to follow me again, I have warned April ahead of time that you might try it, and she is prepared to stop you. You and I both have a duty to perform. Yours is to stay here and stand in my place until I return. Mine, is to complete this mission without fail."

He shook his head. "You are only focused on the mission. Do you not see what is at stake here? You have been a big help to April and the others. If you are captured in that place, there will be no one to help you. If you die… no one will ever be able to avenge your death, no one will even know you died. Doesn't it bother you that the only other person who could help you can no longer shift!"

"You are sounding more and more like Elias by the day."

Kirin's jaw tightened and he looked away momentarily, as if gathering his thoughts. "You're taking a big risk. If April is right, and someone is traveling between Stark and Arcadia, they may know about you. If this person is behind all of this, then they will certainly try to put you out of their way." He sighed and shook his head. "I know I can't change your mind. You've set yourself upon this path and maybe for good reason too. Just… don't do anything foolish. There are those here who depend on you, and I cannot fill your shoes."

Tatya nodded solemnly. "You have my word."

That night, when the camp was silent, Tatya exited the world of Arcadia the way she had entered it many times before.

3.

_Well… things don't seem to have changed much…_

The smell was the first thing that hit her; dank, dirty… the scent of exhaust and garbage. Tugging at the cords of her shoulder bag to make sure she hadn't lost it during the shift, she gave a satisfied smirk and looked at her surroundings. Tatya had not been to Stark for almost a year, since she had shifted and come upon April bleeding to death in the swamp. From that moment on, assisting the rebels had been her main priority. Also, things had changed in Arcadia so much since she had last been; she had to re-familiarize herself with her hometown, the city of Marcuria, and all the surrounding territory. If only these excuses had been the truth. She had honestly used all of those aspects as an excuse to stay away from Stark, away from its technology, from its people. Now, here she was…back in one of the places she would have paid never to have seen again. April wanted nothing more than to return and seek what she had lost. Tatya had decided long ago that she would have loved nothing better than to forget it existed.

_Too late to turn back now_, she thought.

Gritting her teeth, she gave a frustrated sigh and moved slowly towards the opening of the alley, to get an idea where she might be. There were no street signs, but they weren't needed. It was indeed true, that Stark had not changed in the time she had been away. Unless becoming filthier was change. Before her stretched out a long row of what might have, at one time, been housing. Though she didn't know exactly where she was, she could gather from the look of the place that she was somewhere in Newport, not far from the crossroads. This was good; she was near her first target destination.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had to wonder why April was sending her to see Charlie first. What could this young man tell her that no one else could? Or did she just trust him more? This thought aroused some disgruntled feelings, which she buried. She needed to focus… now, more than ever.

Cautiously, she made her way down one alley and then another, passing cans full of day-old trash and barrels that had been turned into fire-pits by or for the transients on the streets. Everything about this place felt wrong. It wasn't the clean, peaceful place it had once been. And Tatya remembered it, even remembered a time when she had longed for it. She and Newport had a history; it had been her home away from Marcuria for a long time. As she laid eyes on the crossroads, her heart sunk just a little bit more. The ruin of this place could only testify to the truth; that things were going to get much worse before they got better. _Time has aged this place further than I might have imagined. I wasn't even gone that long,_ she thought. This only caused her to wonder what else had changed in the little time she had been gone.

Crossing rickety boards carefully to reach the other side of the crossroads, towards her target, she focused on her objective. _No more thinking about the past. That life is gone. The place I knew doesn't even exist anymore. Focus. Focus._

The skitter of stones across paving behind her caused her to tense up, and stop to listen. Slowly, she turned around to look behind her, and let out a soft curse. She knew without a doubt they were gang members. And she was a stranger on their 'turf'. This would only lead to trouble. Sliding her hands deep into her coat pockets, she tried to look relaxed and at home while she gently clutched at the only weapon she had, a small stun-gun she had stolen on her last visit to Stark.

"Someone said a naughty word." One young man taunted, displaying a knife.

"It's my turn, Mo. You got to cut the last one." Another said.

"Knock it off you two. While you're yapping, she's thinking."

That one must have been the leader. She directed her gaze at him, then to the others, trying to discern whether or not any of these men had any fighting experience, or worse… a gun. Even with some fighting skills, she might be able to defend herself, but if one of them carried a gun, she would be taking a risk.

"I really don't want any trouble." She muttered, loud enough for them to hear but low enough not to draw attention from others. She hoped that this would show she wasn't going to immediately holler out for help.

"You're in the wrong part of town then, sister."

"Look, if you want money, I'm afraid I—"

The one with the knife leapt in her direction, and the one who had been complaining about it being his turn reacted as well. Both of them were laughing. Gritting her teeth, Tatya shifted her feet, went into a spin, and used her bag on one of the goon's heads. He reeled back and let out a stream of curses. Focusing on the one had left her open to the one with the knife, who spun her around, pulled her back to his chest, gripped her arms, and put the knife to her throat.

_Damn it._

"This one's a fighter, Rick." He chuckled.

"Let go of me." Tatya said through gritted teeth. She was starting to get angry. _You have to control yourself. If anyone sees you get angry, it's over._ April's words continued to ring in her ear.

"What're you gonna do if I don't?" the one called 'Mo' asked.

"Kill her, Mo! Look what she did to my nose!" the one she had hit with her bag said through his hands as he clutched his bleeding, and probably broken, nose.

Tatya gave a mischievous grin that caused all three of them to raise their eyebrows and look wary. Just as 'Mo' was about to press the knife harder against her neck, she reached her hand back and pushed her index finger and middle finger up his nostrils, and pulled forward. The guy cried out in pain, dropped the knife, and loosened his grip enough that she was able to break away. Immediately, she dropped into a crouch, and sweeping a leg around, swept the man's legs right out from under him. He hit his head on a guard pole on his way down and lay silent. Meanwhile, she could hear the other two moving behind her. Spinning, she pulled the stun gun from her pocket in order to use it, but the leader knocked it from her hands, and tried to get a good hold on her. As she dodged the man's punches and grasps, she noticed that the one she had hit with her bag was running away.

_No honor among thieves OR gang members, I see._

"Give it up. One of your guys has run away like a baby and the others on his way to lullaby land."

"I'm gonna teach you a lesson, you b—"

_That damned word again. Why must every fool and coward under the balance feel the need to use that word, _she wondered. Her eyes narrowed. As he lunged at her, she caught him by the throat and the shoulder, turned him, and pushed him over the railing, watching him fall into the empty, dark abyss below.

"No one calls me by that word." She muttered wiping her dirty fingers off on her pants.

Straightening her coat and picking up her bag, which she had dropped after using it on one of the gang members, she let out a sigh. At least she had managed to remain under control. For that, she was satisfied. She could only hope there would not be more of them to test her before she accomplished what she had come to do. She made her way across what remained of the crossroads, and into the alley where the entrance to the Fringe was located. It didn't look like much from the outside, but she had long ago cast aside the idea that what was on the outside had any effect on what was inside. Personal experience had helped to discourage that sort of thought. When those around you looked upon you as a monster, you started to see how appearances and truth were not one and the same, but two separate entities. _The only difference is- I became the monster that everyone saw in their minds. I didn't have someone to tell me the truth_, she thought. Immediately, she shut those thoughts into the back of her mind, where she could reflect on them later.

_Now isn't the time for self reflection._

She gently pushed the buzzer, and waited.

"Yeah?" A husky male voice spoke up over the intercom.

"You wouldn't happen to know how I could get in touch with Charlie, would you?"

"Who's asking?"

"A friend. I really need to see him."

"I can't just let you in here without knowing why you need to see him."

She allowed an exasperated sigh to escape her. "It's about Zoe."

There was a long pause while the one on the other end of the line thought it over. "Alright, come on in."

The door slid open with a hydraulic hiss, and then shut behind her as she stepped inside. Tatya glanced about at the interior, raised an eyebrow, and scanned the night club until she noticed the gentleman standing over to the far right of the bar, speaking to a young woman that Tatya could only guess was an employee. Tatya walked across the shiny night club floor, and hesitated just beyond hearing range for him to finish speaking to the girl. When he was done, she went up a set of winding stairs to the second floor. The man eyed Tatya warily, but not unfriendly.

"You said you were a friend of Zoe's?"

Tatya cleared her throat. "Not exactly. If we could have a seat?"

"Wait. I want to know who you are and why you're looking for her first."

She sighed. Her lack of patience was one of the reasons she had never gone into the service industry as a teen. She ran a list of possible ideas through her head. What could she do? She could lie to him, but he might call her bluff. She could tell him the truth, and he might decide to turn her in to the Eye. Then again, she could tell him the truth, and he might think she was a nut-job. All of the choices had their draw-backs, so she settled for a half-truth.

"Look, I don't have time for dancing around the subject, so here's the deal. I'm Annika Rush, and I'm looking for her because a friend of hers asked me to."

"Who is this friend?"

She gave another frustrated sigh and dropped her bag onto one of the cushioned seats. "I promised I wouldn't say. Look, if you don't want to tell me anything, that's fine. But I need information and I need it quick, before I lose much more time."

"Well, what CAN you tell me? For example… why come looking for her here?"

"Because she came here, she saw you. She spoke to you and Emma. She was looking for her friend Reza, who had gone missing. She was mixed into some pretty bad stuff, and I think she's paying for it, alright?" Acting had never been her strong suit, and neither had lying, but so far she felt confident that he was buying into it. _It's not really a lie… it's just not a whole truth,_ she thought. _I'm just not telling him everything. He doesn't need to know more about April, about Arcadia. Zoe told them enough already._

He blinked and sat down on the seat behind him. "How do you know about her meeting with Emma?"

Tatya bit her lip. "This is personal…"

"You want information out of me; I have to know who I'm talking to."

Another exasperated sigh escaped her. "Alright… is there some place a little more private where we can talk?"

After mulling it over for a minute, he nodded. "Follow me." He turned on his heel made his way over and up the spiraling stair case, pausing briefly to make sure she was following him before continuing up. The second floor had paneled off rooms for privacy. He walked to the second, slid the door open, and stepped inside. Tatya followed him inside, and slid the door shut behind her.

"Now it's just the two of us. What do you want? Why are you looking for Zoe?"

"Do the words 'April Ryan' still hold any significance for you?" Tatya muttered under her breath.

He had been turned away from her, and he wheeled, an expression of shock on his face. "You…?"

She stepped closer to him, and as she did her eyes glowed somewhat unnaturally in the darkened ambience of the room.

"You didn't believe her? Even after what you saw?"

Seeing her eyes, he backed up until he was forced to sit on the padded cushion of the bench, staring up with eyes partially filled with fear and amazement. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Tatya smirked and took a step back, and things were back to normal again, as if what he had seen had never happened.

"Yes. I'm from that place. The place April called Arcadia. I've come here on her behalf. I need to retrace her steps a bit. I also need to find Zoe. I need to know what you know about her. The details April has about her personally are sketchy at best. She thought she could depend on you."

"How do I know this isn't some sort of trick?"

"Before Zoe left…before the last time you saw her, she told you she had met with April, that while she was unconscious she had been to another place. That she had been to Arcadia."

He nodded. "Yes, that is true. But I still don't see how this can prove anything."

"You loved her once, didn't you?"

Charlie glanced up at her, shocked again. "How…"

"You hide your belief that April is alright behind a hard exterior. You wouldn't do that if you hadn't cared about her deeply." Tatya sighed. "I don't expect you to believe me. Just tell me what you know. Anything that can help; even the smallest detail that seems insignificant. I need to know how to find her."

He sighed, seeming still a bit shaken by the surprise she had given him. It was obvious to her that he had not seen something as strange as she in a very long time. "I only know a few things. Her name is Zoe Castillo, and she was here to find her friend, Reza Temiz… a.k.a. Jericho. He works for the Hand that Bites… a feed that—"

"I know about the Hand. Where does she live?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Check with the Hand. Their bound to have information that can help you." He stood and made his way around her to the door. "What did you mean about retracing April's footsteps?"

Tatya's jaw tightened visibly. She was more than a little bit irritated. She had not only had to reveal that she was not from this place, but she had also had to let him in on a good deal more than she had wanted to. "Any more information would be dangerous for you to know. If something bad happened to both Zoe's friend Reza and Zoe herself, it is dangerous enough just for me to talk to you; let alone give you more tid-bits than you need. Leave it alone. And don't tell anyone I have been here. Not even Emma. The information I'm searching for is not for everyone."

He nodded in agreement, and held the door open for her this time, not wanting her to suddenly get the jump on him, she supposed. As she passed through the door, he spoke to her quietly.

"Do me a favor. If…when you see her again. Tell her I'm sorry."

"She already forgave you long ago, Charlie. Let it go and move on. Tell Emma to do the same. It may be a long time, if ever, that you see her again. Better to put the hope of seeing her again at the back of your mind. It will save you the disappointment."

With these cold words, she left him to think things over and exited the night club as well. It was time to pay the Hand that Bites a visit.

4.

Picking the lock hadn't been difficult. Though Tatya had hated her time spent in Stark, she wouldn't deny that there were things that she had learned that were useful to her. Her time living in Stark had taught her more about how to deal with the real world, the world that was harsher, darker. She had gained a lot of her fighting experience on the streets of Venice, after the collapse, before she had begun her attempts to reach her home again. It had been an ugly world…it still was, and so far all the experiences she had assisted in allowing her to move within that world very easily, without sticking out so much. It was not difficult for her to change ways of speaking. It was not difficult for her to disappear on the streets of the city and not be found. It was definitely not a challenge to pick a lock. And so she waited. The waiting is what killed her. Depending on the schedules of other people had never been one of the things that Tatya had taken pleasure in. It became even worse when you took into account how long it had been since she had had dealings with the Hand that Bites. Would he even remember her?

Two hours passed, and Tatya was just beginning to give up on him when she hear a key scrape the lock, and the door swung open. She was struck by how much older he looked. Not aged, there was not even a speck of gray in his hair, and yet his eyes gave the impression that his mind had aged while his body had not. He looked tired, and alarmed. He stood in the doorway, hand still on the doorknob, and stared at her.

"How the hell did you—"

Tatya picked up a picture from the desk she leaned against and looked at it, allowing him to notice how at ease she was, and how unconcerned she was with being found. The photograph was of a young woman. She had heard stories from other colleagues, about the smiling woman in the picture. Some claimed she was his sister, others, his fiancée. But all said the same thing. She had been killed by men working for the Church of Voltec. This, and many other things, had spurred him into action. Such events had been the turning point in this nameless man's life. And the Hand that Bites was born.

"It's been a long time." She murmured quietly, and set the picture back down.

"Who—"he stopped himself, squinted at her, and his mouth dropped open again. "Mother of god…I thought they'd killed you."

"Not yet." She looked about the office. "You've been busy. The Church of Voltec disappeared into the woodwork just after the collapse. I thought you would have settled down by now. Married. Raised a child. I must say I'm quite confused what you're still doing traipsing around and acting as a ghost. How lucky for me I even knew where to find you."

"The Church of Voltec has diminished, yes. But other organizations are taking their place. I couldn't risk settling down, if remnants of the Church of Voltec still exist, or by chance they have just changed their name in order to cover their tracks…no. It would be too dangerous to have a family now. And besides, you've seen this place. There is nothing left of Newport. The town is past death; it's nearing total decay. And as for finding me, how did you?"

"Come, come, Ghost. You don't give away all your secrets… why would you expect me to give away all of mine. I'm here for information."

"Obviously. You wouldn't have picked the lock if you just wanted to chat." He shut the door and locked it. "You would have made a phone call."

"Sorry about that."

"No you're not." He grinned and set the electronic notepad he carried down on his desk. "What do you want to know?

"What can you tell me about Zoe? Word was she was friends with one of your little errand boys, and that she got into trouble trying to bail him out of trouble himself."

"Wait… you're talking about Reza's Zoe? Zoe Castillo?" He gave a heavy sigh and shook his head, then pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "I should have known they'd distort the truth. Zoe's friend Olivia tried to contact me a while back, but our connection was cut just after the conversation started. She was trying to tell me that Zoe had gone after Reza, and that something had happened. The next thing I heard about her was some incident over the Wire. Oh god…. Do you know how deeply she was involved?"

"Not sure. My information is sketchy. How would I get a hold of Zoe if I wanted to talk directly to her?"

"You can't—"

"I have to. It's important."

"No, no… you don't understand. It's obviously important if you came to me, but you can't talk to Zoe. She's been unable to talk to anyone for a while now."

Tatya's eyes narrowed in irritation. "Don't play coy with me, Ghost. What are you babbling about?"

He sighed, and hung his head. "Zoe's been in a coma for quite some time. On the Wire, they gave some lame excuses for what happened, but I had always felt there was something wrong. I should have checked into it sooner."

"What about Reza Temiz?"

"Jericho?" He leaned back in his chair. "I haven't heard from him since before he was supposed to meet that Rio woman. He disappeared. There have been no phone calls, no messages; nothing. He's vanished. Most likely he's dead, another victim of the Eye… or WattiCorp… or both."

"I need you to tell me everything you can about Zoe, Reza, any contacts that Reza might have had, any relatives of either—"

He sat forward in his seat, shaking his head emphatically. "You know I can't just give you all of that! Reza kept those names quiet for a reason! He didn't want to bring the Eye and WattiCorp down on those people like…" His words came to an abrupt halt when he realized what he was about to say.

"Like you did to me?" Tatya rasped angrily at him. She slammed the palm of her hand down on the top of his desk, grabbed his collar, and pulled him half-way across the desk so that they were face to face. "You owe me!" She hissed at him menacingly.

"I was young and foolish! I didn't know what I was doing! And it has been years… have you not learned to forgive?"

"I haven't enough words to describe what they put me through, and you beg for forgiveness?" She let go of his shirt collar and shoved him back into his chair. "I'm not leaving until I have whatever information you have. You owe me at least that much, if not more."

He hung his head and rubbed the back of his neck, which was sore after she jerked him out of his chair by his shirt. "If I give you all of this information, I have to be certain you'll be careful with it. If word gets out, people could be killed."

"People have already been killed in the name of your crusade for justice, Ghost!" She hissed at him again, slapping the palm of her hand against the desktop again and then flinging it sideways, sending several desk items skittering off onto the floor.

"I just need to know you'll be careful. What I'm about to tell you is sensitive."

She gritted her teeth, and straightened to look out the window. It seemed peculiar how everything always seemed to come full circle. What Tatya had called the birth of her new life had started in a similar office to this one, in front of the same man. Only at that time it had been him seeking information, and she had given it readily enough. Trying to do the reverse seemed to be like squeezing blood from a nickel.

"Annika?"

"You can trust me to be more careful than you were."

He bit his lip, nodded, and then let out another heavy sigh. "Here's what I know…"

5.

According to Ghost, Zoe's last known residence was in Casablanca, and as far as he knew, the father still lived there, traveling back and forth between there and the hospital to visit her. Ghost claimed that Gabriel Castillo was Zoe's only living relative, based on what Reza had eluded to during conversation. It was obvious to Tatya that Reza had avoided telling Ghost too much information about Zoe, and it was not hard to understand why. There were still rumors traveling around about what had happened to one of his informants when he had first begun working to shut the Church of Voltec down. It had been too long now for people to remember the Church of Voltec; the collapse had wiped all other concerns from their minds. Now, it had been over ten years… and the Church of Voltec was little more than a bad nightmare that the public had awoken from.

Ghost had suggested that Tatya speak with Gabriel to get an inside look into Zoe's life before her long sleep, and also suggested that she might see if she could find out information about what had become of the stuff in Reza's apartment; namely- Reza's mysterious notebook. It more than annoyed Tatya that Ghost would still be insisting upon getting his hands on Reza's secrets, even after all this time had passed. _Doesn't he realize that Temiz's notebook is one of the reasons all of this is going on? Has he forgotten how dangerous agencies and factions like the Church of Voltec, the Eye, and WattiCorp could be? _She pushed these thoughts aside; she knew they could be no help to her in this time. Times like these called for action. For a keen eye, a sharp mind, and someone who was willing to get their hands dirty and maybe ruffle a few feathers to get the job done.

The trip to Casablanca gave her just enough time to prepare the approach she would use on Zoe's father. Intimidation was abundantly useful most of the time in Tatya's 'line of work'. However, it would take finesse if she wanted to squeeze any information out of Gabriele Castillo. Intimidation would only cause fear, and though she often used fear to get what she wanted, it would not work in this case. Gabriel would no doubt either clam up on her, or report her to the Eye. Neither one of them would do; both of them would cost her precious time and lots of patience. And so, Tatya would opt for the more difficult path for her to use –kindness. She would smooth over things with Gabriel, learn what she could, and then move on. Seeing Gabriel was only part of her objective while in Casablanca. Tatya planned to meet with many of Zoe's old friends and those that she had worked with in the past. There were no doubt things that her friends knew about her that her own father did not. That was the way things were, even now in this 'advanced' age.

_A world that has claimed to be so advanced, and yet it is still not far from its cave man days. The people have regressed, the streets are filthy, agencies are getting away with murder and no one is doing a thing about it. If this is what is called 'advanced'…_

She shook her head and sighed, looking over the dossier that Ghost had given her to read. The only written word she had to go on. It was Reza's notes from previous cases; information building up to the one he had been working on when he'd disappeared. The things inside were invaluable to the right people, and Ghost had warned her to take care not to let it slip from her hands. He pressed her that if she be caught at any time, by the Eye or WattiCorp, to destroy it in any way she could. Tatya could only figure that, although this information had long ago been used, he feared that the dossier itself might someday get back to him. She found that she could almost care less if he was caught. Gritting her teeth, she stared off into the distance, and tried not to think about the past.

_I can never forgive him for what he did, though I know it was only a mistake made by a naïve first-time offender who was out to screw those who had made him so unhappy,_ she thought. _I know he didn't mean for any of it to happen, but I don't think I will ever be able to bring myself to forgive him…_

The sudden slowing and stopping of the train brought her back to the things going on around her, and she stood to exit. As she did, she slammed into someone, who muttered an apology as they continued to push past her. She shifted out of the way of the others exiting the train, and looked at the one who had shoved her. She bit her lip to prevent letting her mouth drop open in surprise, and glanced quickly down at the dossier in her hands.

_Him... it can't be._

Shoving into the line of walking people with barely a murmur, she pushed her way towards the front, to the door. Foot traffic had backed things up, and she was stuck inside, but she looked out the window and saw him again. As if he felt eyes upon him, he turned and looked straight at her, and gave a small smile.

_It's him…and yet it's not._

A sudden sharp pain in her head caused her to moan and sway. One of the other passengers gave a cry of alarm and held her hands out as if to catch her, but she steadied herself on one of the seats. Another sharp pain and she squinted as if the lights hurt her.

_What is this? Why…_ she thought.

"_Not him! Not him!_"

Her eyes flew open in surprise as the pain lessened. Had she just heard voices? She clutched at her forehead, and made her way back into line to get off the train before it left the station.

"Are you alright, dear?" An elderly woman, two paces back from her, asked. Her wrinkled face was etched with concern. "Do you need one of us to call a doctor?"

"I'm fine… thank you."

"You might want to have that looked at dear. It could be serious." She mumbled.

"I will." She nodded, and exited the train.

As she walked away from the train station, she glanced back. _What had just happened there?_ _Had she really heard voices in her head?_ Tatya was almost more concerned than the old woman had been. It was not like her to react to pain this way. She had been injured before…she had been stabbed, clubbed, beaten, brought to the point of death and then dragged back from the abyss. Dealing with pain had become a common occurrence to her. Could it be that this pain was so different from anything she had felt before? And what about the voices? There were things about her powers she was still learning about, and this was a bad time for a new ability to manifest itself. And if it was not an ability… if something was affecting her, some outside source, it could be that they already knew she was here.

6.

The man who looked around the cracked open door was weary. It seemed that the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and there was nothing he could do about it. Dark hair was starting to turn gray; eyes were weary and appeared to be without sleep, his mouth was pulled into a frown. Tatya knew he wasn't too thrilled to find someone at his door, and tried to appear as if he'd been asleep so that maybe she would leave him in peace. She could tell he had not been sleeping. It was written in his eyes; on his face. It had probably been days. Deep down, she felt a twinge of pity. Here was another upstanding citizen that had been squashed and trod on by defeat.

"Can I help you?" He murmured lifelessly.

"I apologize for disturbing you, Mr. Castillo, but I need to speak with you."

"I'm sorry…you've got the wrong house. Mr. Castillo doesn't live here…" He began to shut the door.

Gently, she placed a foot in the crack of the door, and pressed the palm of her hand flat against the wood, preventing him from shutting it completely.

She watched his expression change from tired to mildly irritated. His jaw tightened as he looked her up and down, obviously taking in her well tended suit pants and shirt, and the dossier she carried. The only thing that might have thrown off the look was her shoulder pack, but he didn't even seem to take notice of it.

"I don't want to talk to any more reporters." He tried to push on the door.

Tatya gritted her teeth to keep from yelling at the sap for practically squeezing her foot in the door. "I'm not a reporter." She said, her voice tinged with annoyance.

"You look like a reporter." He'd stopped pushing on the door, but he wasn't opening it either.

"If you give me a moment of your time, Mr. Castillo, I can explain."

"You people always want a moment of my time. A moment here, a moment there; my daughter's in the hospital, don't you understand?"

"I mean you and Zoe no harm, Gabriel. I can't talk about this outside in the open. If you'll let me step inside I will explain who I am and why I'm here."

The use of his first name was a gamble, and it worked. He gave a sigh of defeat, and opened the door just far enough for Tatya to slide inside, which she did. Immediately, she was dismayed at the appearance of the place, and wondered if anyone really lived here. Everything was coated in a thin layer of dust. The place was a darkened tomb.

"You don't live here." Tatya murmured, looking about the place, and noting the winding staircase to her right.

"No. I have a one bedroom apartment downtown."

She stepped further into the room, and ran her index finger across the dining room table. "You don't sell the place because you're hoping she'll get better."

"…Yes…who are you?"

She wiped the dust from her finger and regarded him calmly. "My name is Annika Rush."

"You use to work for the Hand…"

"You've heard of them, and of me?"

He nodded solemnly and sunk onto the sofa. "Reza mentioned you on occasion. Everyone thought you were dead."

"I had to disappear for a while. I've been temporarily re-instated to the Hand, and I'm looking into your daughter's case. How well did you know Reza?"

"About as well as any father knows the boy his daughter is seeing. Why are you looking into Zoe's case? I thought it was closed…"

"Not quite. I insisted on getting this case –for personal reasons I'd rather not talk about. Is there anything you can tell me about Zoe? Something that can help get me started?"

"Started on what?"

"I have to re-trace her steps. Zoe was onto something very dangerous before… this happened. I need to know everything she learned."

This seemed to anger him a little. "So the Hand can put it in a feed? Is that all you people care about?"

"I didn't take this case because of the Hand, Mr. Castillo. The Hand was just able to give me information on Reza that I would have had difficulty obtaining, and they helped me find you, although I'm glad I caught you here, or we might never have met. I want to know the truth, about all of it. There is still a great deal of mystery around what happened to Zoe… I want to solve it. But to do that, I'm going to need your help."

He nodded solemnly again. "Alright. I'll help in any way I can. What do you want to know?"

"How did you know Reza worked for the Hand that Bites?"

"I guessed. I knew that Reza was a journalist… and he was always quite secret about what he was working on. So I naturally assumed it would be something subversive, or something that he wouldn't want people to know about. Naturally, the Hand was the first thing that came to mind."

"Did Zoe know you knew?"

"No. If I had told her, she would have just worried that I would spill it to someone and get Reza into trouble. My job had a lot to do with that."

"I'm guessing you're not working there anymore?"

"I was volunteered for an early retirement. Right after… Zoe went to sleep. How did you know?"

"I didn't. I took a guess. Did you know any of Zoe's other friends… other than Reza?"

"There was Olivia… and then the girl at the Moca Loco –Karen, I think."

"No others?"

"She had other friends… ones from school, but she hasn't seen them in a long time. They tried to contact her a while back. They were pretty broken up. As for anyone else… I don't know. She was supposed to have a party while I was away at Bombay; I was gone for a week for work. I called here several times, but she was always out. When I got back…" His voice trailed off, and he placed his face in the palms of his hands while he tried to regain his composure.

"Do you know where Olivia worked? And where Reza's apartment was?"

"Olivia has a shop not far from here. Alien the Cat. She might be able to tell you more about Reza. I honestly don't know much more than that."

Tatya nodded. "Yes… I passed that shop on the way here." She paused to watch him as he nodded in agreement with her. He really was in a state. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Castillo."

"Please… call me Gabriel. And do me a favor. If you find out anything… anything at all… call me?"

"You have my word." Tatya turned to go, and had her hand on the door knob when he called to her softly.

"Miss—"

"Annika."

"Yes… I go to the hospital in a few hours, to sit with her. If you would like to meet her..."

She looked back at him, and forced a soft smile on her face. "I would like that very much. I'll be busy for a while, so I will meet you there, okay?"

He nodded, and she stepped out. She didn't want to see him break down. It pained her enough already to know more about what was going on than he did.

_To know all this, and not be able to tell him…when it comes to keeping secrets like this… I will never be comfortable with it._

Pushing these thoughts deep inside herself, she quickened her pace as she walked down Jardin de Rose to the store at the end of the long narrow section of street. The neon sign above the door featured the words 'Alien the Cat'. Pushing through the beaded curtain, she looked about the jumble of chaos that probably hit everyone as they came in like a brick to the face. Robots and parts lay scattered about the place, boxes on shelves, posters on walls. _How does she ever find anything?_ Tatya wondered. A tan skinned woman stood at a work station, busily typing information onto a keypad, and completely unaware of her visitor, or so Tatya thought.

"I'll be right with you." The woman commented, holding up a hand with her index finger pointed at the sky, the well known 'just a moment' symbol. Once she was finished, she turned her attentions on Tatya. "Can I help you?"

Tatya walked down the stairs to meet up with the woman, all the while taking in the place. When she reached the woman, Tatya turned her eyes on her. "Yes… I'm in the market for a mobile."

"Ah! We have several new ones that just came in…" The woman continued to babble on about her products as she led Tatya over to the wall where they were displayed.

_Give her time to get comfortable with me first…_ she thought. _Then I'll broach the subject. _ She knew that if she brought the subject up too quickly, the woman might freeze. So Tatya listened to this techno-babble for several minutes before choosing one at random. And while the woman was packaging it up, Tatya finally spoke up about what she was really here about.

"You're Olivia, correct?"

"That's right, sweetie. Did someone refer you? I'll need the name so I can give them a discount on their next item."

"I don't think you'll be seeing him in here, though you never know. His name is Gabriel Castillo."

She stopped what she was doing and looked up at Tatya. "Zoe's father? He sent you here?"

"Well… not sent me exactly. He told me this was where I could find one of Zoe's best friends."

Tatya could see she was already starting to freeze up, and so she scrambled internally for something that she could use to get the girl to open up to her.

"I'm here to find out what happened before Zoe went into a coma. I'm trying to… follow her footsteps and see if we can't find the origin of what caused it. Maybe then we could reverse it."

"I thought they had already found the cause." She had crossed her arms, leaned against the desk, and she was looking at Tatya warily.

"I want to know the real cause." Tatya said, lowering her voice. "I need to know everything that she did, or as much as you can tell me."

Olivia relaxed slightly, and sighed. "She was looking for Reza."

"I know that much. She had gone much deeper than that, hadn't she? She was unraveling the story that Reza had been working on when he disappeared."

"How did you—"

"Listen, I don't have much time." Tatya spoke with urgency. Why did it take so much to get information out of everyone? "She was unraveling the story when she went into a coma. I need to know what happened to her. What she learned. Who she spoke to – I need her contacts – anyone who can give me an ounce of information. Something bad is happening, and what she was unraveling is part of a much larger picture. You have to trust me."

"How can I?"

"How can you not? Every moment you waste waffling on this is one moment lost."

"Alright, alright." She raised her hands as if to ward Tatya off. "Give me something. Something that tells me you aren't working for the Eye or WattiCorp."

"The Eye and WattiCorp consider this a closed case, don't they? Why would they be prowling around for more information in a case that is closed? Zoe is asleep, and Reza is missing."

"But Reza's not missing." She said. "I've seen him leaving the hospital."

"Has he come to retrieve any of his things?"

The realization seemed to hit Olivia, and her eyes widened. "The Eye cleared out his apartment soon after Zoe went to sleep… right before Reza showed back up. He never asked me what happened to his things… or his notebook…"

"His notebook?" Tatya jumped on the topic. "What of his notebook?"

"I still have it. Zoe… gave it to me. Reza… why didn't he ask for it back, he would have figured she gave it to me."

_Unless Reza's not really Reza anymore…_

"Nevermind." Tatya waved a hand dismissively. "The notebook –can I have it?"

She seemed to mull it over in her mind, chewing at her lip, and Tatya knew why. If she gave Tatya the notebook, and she was an Eye agent, or a WattiCorp spy, then the truth would be completely lost.

"You have to trust me. I want the best for Zoe."

"I still don't…how can I trust you?"

Tatya pulled a card from her pocket, one that she'd been given by Ghost, with a contact number. "Here." She offered the card to Olivia, who hesitated a moment before taking it.

"What is this number?"

"This is a number, and a password. You'll need the number to contact Ghost, and the password to get more than a word out of him."

"Ghost?" She looked confused and shook her head. "I don't know any ghost."

"You do, and you don't. Look, if I have to, I will have the Hand pay for your information."

"The Hand?" She looked at the number and then back up at Tatya, and her expression changed from mildly shocked to complete surprise. "You're with the Hand."

"Yes and no –temporarily. It's a long story and I don't want to get into it. Just… if you don't believe me, call this number, say the password the minute you hear a hello, and ask for me –Annika Rush."

"Annika Rush… the informant who…"

Tatya raised a hand and shook her head. She didn't want to go down that road again. "Just dial."

Olivia gave her a doubtful look, and then pulled out her mobile and dialed the number. She waited for a few minutes; no doubt the line rang several times, and then spoke. "A traveler waits."

Another wait. "I need to speak with Annika Rush." Another pause. Olivia looked at her and said. "He said she's on assignment."

"Put it on speaker." Tatya instructed.

Olivia did as instructed, and waited to see what would happen.

"Ghost –it's me."

"Glad to hear you made it okay. Has everything gone as planned?" Ghost's familiar voice over the speaker should have calmed her tension, but it only increased it. She forced herself to focus.

"Some of it, yes. I can't report all of it now. I need you to give Olivia my old identification number."

"Annika… are you telling me you can't remem—"

"Just do it, Ghost."

Ghost cleared his throat, and from the sound of it fought off a chuckle, which only made Tatya more irritated. There was the sound of shuffling papers on the other end of the line, and then Ghost read off Annika's old employee number. As he read it, Olivia punched it into the computer, and pulled up Annika's old photo badge.

"Thank you." Tatya pushed the end call button on Olivia's mobile while Olivia stared at the photo copy of Tatya's badge.

"High clearance..." Olivia looked at her.

"One of the few original members of the Hand that actually knew what Ghost looked like. Now hardly anyone has direct contact with him."

Olivia nodded, and went to retrieve Reza's notebook. "You're well connected."

"I have to be, if I'm to find out what happened to Zoe." Tatya took the notebook gently and looked over it. "It's in code."

"I have the translations here, and my notes on what she had found and where she was going. I finished it just after Zoe went to sleep." Olivia offered her a print out of the translations and her report. "I assume you want me to destroy any copies I have."

Tatya shook her head. "No. But keep them under lock and key. Don't let anyone see them, or get their hands on them. Not even Reza."

"Reza's never asked for them."

"He might –soon. Once someone catches on to what I'm doing. Thank you, Olivia. Be careful. If anyone asks, I haven't been here. You don't even know who I am." Tatya turned and began making her way up the stairs; sliding the notebook, translations, and report in the bag next to the dossier that Ghost had given her.

"I don't understand—"

"Trust me. There's much more to this than just the Eye and WattiCorp. There's a much bigger picture—a dangerous one. Keep quiet, and lay low. Both the Eye and WattiCorp will do their best to keep whatever is going on from coming out. Everyone involved in Reza's old case… everyone involved with Zoe, is at risk. Keep your nose clean, and don't poke around. I don't want to hear from Ghost that another person has died or disappeared."

"How will I get in contact with you if I learn something? Call Ghost?"

"No. You can't call him anymore –the contact number changes after each call. I don't even know what the next number will be. Call the new mobile you sold me."

"That means even you can't call for help… you're on your own?"

"I always have been."

With those last words, Tatya left. All she could do now was trust Olivia's judgment, and hope that if she decided to get involved, she at least kept her head down while she did so.

7.

Two hours had passed, and although she had gotten somewhere with the questioning of Olivia, she had made absolutely no progress since. Tatya had spoken to Karen, at the Moca Loco, only to conclude that Zoe kept most of what was going on at that point in her life; to herself; with the exception of her relationship with Reza, and her own feelings of worthlessness.

There were several other prospective interviewees that Tatya had crossed off her list to begin with, because she felt that they had little to no adequate data. As she rode in the taxi that took her in the direction of Casablanca's main hospital, she took a moment to glance over the translations and the report written by Olivia. There was one name that popped out, one person that she would have liked to speak to a great deal. Damien Cavanaugh. By the report that Olivia had written, they had discovered through Reza's notes that he was an informant inside WattiCorp, and Zoe had gone to Japan to meet up with him. Tatya chewed her lip, and slapped the file shut as the taxi pulled up in front of the hospital. Sliding the files inside her bag once again, she stepped out, and entered the hospital, immediately approaching the front desk.

"Mr. Castillo asked for me. Can I go up?" She hated to ask permission, but she knew that if she had just tried to traipse in, guards would have immediately thrown her out on her ear, and there would have been no getting back in without picking a lock or breaking a window.

"May I have your name, please?"

"Mrs. Rush."

"Let me check." The nurse on duty picked up a phone, dialed a number, spoke into the receiver, and then nodded. "He's waiting for you. Second floor, room 201."

Tatya murmured a thank you, and headed down the hall to the elevator. A sudden, agonizing pain surging through her head, right behind her left eye, caused her to wince, and she clutched at her head until the pain passed.

_This pain again? What is it this time?_

She squared her shoulders, and smiling wanly at a few concerned patrons, kept walking. As she was reaching the elevator, she caught sight of someone exiting the elevator and heading in her direction. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end when she realized who it was, and she immediately backpedaled to a nearby water fountain and turned her back to him to take a sip, waiting until he had passed before standing up straight. She watched his back as he made for the hospital's front doors. Sliding inside the elevator before he could turn and see her, she waited until the elevator doors had closed before leaning against the wall as another wave of pain hit her.

_By the balance, what's wrong with me?_

Trying her best to regain her composure, she gently pushed herself away from the wall and took deep breaths, trying to let go of the pain and focus on something else. The pain began to subside just as the doors of the elevator slid open, and she exited onto the second floor. The sign posted in front of the elevator indicated that Room 201 was to her left, and so she turned left down the hall and walked to the end of it. Standing outside, she took several more deep breaths to stop the trembling that had begun in her hands when the second wave had hit her, and then opened the door. Gabriel looked up as she came in, shutting the door behind her.

"How is she?" Tatya murmured.

"Better today. She doesn't look quite so pale." Though he said it, she gathered from the look on his face that he didn't mean it. He had given up hope that she would ever get better. "They say it won't be long now… that she'll be passing soon."

"I'm sure they have been saying that for some time. Zoe seems to be a fighter; I don't think they know her well enough. I'm sure she's in there someone, fighting to regain control."

He smiled sadly and nodded. "She could be stubborn."

"Can. Don't give up on her yet, Gabriel. She needs you to remain strong."

Gabriel brushed his cheeks to wipe away what might have been stray tears. "I'm trying." He took a deep breath and let it out; it shook with his anguish, even though he was no longer crying. In an attempt to regain control, he took another deep breath and then changed the subject. "You missed him. Reza was here."

"_Not…"_

A faint sound echoed in her ear, or maybe it was in her head, and the pain that had appeared behind her eye returned, though fainter. Tatya winced, and stumbled.

"Woah, woah… are you okay?" Gabriel immediately moved to help her, gently dragging the chair over and forcing her to sit down. "Are you drunk?"

"No…not drunk." Another wave hit, and Tatya moaned, clutching at her head with both hands as surge after surge rushed through her, causing little spots of light behind her eyes.

"_Not…"_

"_That's not…"_

Tatya cried out as the pain increased. Her heart seemed as if it wanted to leap from her chest.

"I'm going to get a doctor." Gabriel said, rushing to the door and reaching for the handle.

"_No…"_

"No." Tatya moaned.

"_Not…"_

"_That's not…"_

Another wave of pain hit her, and the pain caused her to heave. Since she had neglected to eat anything on her trip to Casablanca, her stomach was empty, and there was nothing to void. But the pain of dry heaving only made things worse. She shook all over.

"I have to…" Gabriel stammered.

"No…"

"_That's not…Reza…"_

"_Do you… hear me… that's… not Reza."_

"_Dad…that's not Reza."_

"Zoe…" Tatya whispered; her eyes opening wide as the pain disappeared as quickly as it had come upon her. She blinked, and took several deep breaths to again quell the trembling.

"No… I'm… I'm okay."

"Are you sure?" Gabriel's face showed profound concern.

"Yes… I'm…alright." Tatya tried to stand but her legs gave out from under her and she sunk quickly back into the chair. "I just, need a moment."

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure."

"You really should be checked out…"

Tatya shook her head, and took another deep breath. Her heart rate began to lower to its normal speed. "No. I'm okay. I'll have them look at it later."

"You're sure?"

"Yes." She rubbed her forehead, and then pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'll find Reza, and talk to him later. I'm sure he's busy. So this is Zoe." She changed the subject, and stood up, then stepped over to the bed to take the girl's hand gently.

This was the girl who had unknowingly walked into the path of a circling storm, the one who had traveled from Arcadia and back without shifting, and the one who had insisted that she had been sent to Arcadia to help April, to save her. Even seeing her lying in that bed, Tatya almost expected her to rise up, and try again. She didn't seem like the type to give up.

_Are you trying to talk to me, Zoe?_ Tatya wondered. _You're trying to tell someone the truth, aren't you? Only no one can hear you. No one… except me...?_ How could it be possible? Tatya was a shifter. She only came by her other abilities by chance. Was it the experiments that had caused this? Was this another ability that was now presenting itself? Why now?

"She's very pretty." Tatya murmured quietly.

"Very. She looks a lot like her mother."

"What happened to her mother?"

"She… died."

"I'm sorry. I know all of these questions seem like an invasion. But you have no idea how important some of this information may be."

He waved it away with his hand. "Did you get to see Olivia?"

"Yes. And she's put me on a path. I can't give you more than that right now, it's too risky. How often does Reza visit?"

"Whenever he can…not often."

Tatya looked down at Zoe, a renewed purpose filling her heart. This was more than a duty. This young girl was being used as a puppet somehow. Toyed with, and then thrown away. Anger surged into Tatya's heart. In some ways, Zoe and Tatya were not very different from one another. Both had been pawns in a very sick and twisted game. Her jaw clenched as she thought about this. _No more._

"I have to go. Do me a favor?"

"Anything."

"If Reza shows up again," She pulled a blank card from her bag, and wrote her mobile number on it. "Call me and let me know?" She held out the card to him.

"Sure. What will you do in the meantime?"

"Whatever I can do to help solve this, and maybe get you your daughter back."

Tatya turned and exited the room, heading back down the hall to the elevator. As she did so, she looked out one of the windows to watch the sun set. She would have to go back to Newport, to see Charlie again and find out what all Zoe had found out from him. Any secret hidden from her now, was an objective; a mystery to be solved. This had gone past her promise to April.

_I will find a way, Zoe. You're words will not go unheard anymore; your adventure will not go unfinished. I will solve this mystery, and free you; one way… or another._

8.

Finding out, from one of the employees of the Fringe, that Charlie was out increased ten fold the tension she was already under, and made her bitter enough that she snapped at the employee unnecessarily. She had to wonder why the people in Stark felt the need to be so inaccessible or so uncooperative. It would have been easy if she were back in Marcuria. Most respected her, and those that didn't, were normally easy to either bribe, or threaten. Things seemed -less complicated- in Arcadia.

Of course, learning from the same employee that she also had no idea where her manager went made Tatya even more annoyed, and she caught herself mumbling as she stepped out into the cold, bleak, rainy night. He could be anywhere in the balance forsaken city. But she would start at the other side of the crossroads.

Crossing the wooden planks that served as bridges in many places where the pathways on the crossroads had deteriorated beyond repair, she listened and watched for signs of gang members around, but saw none. At the other side, she crossed over a large bridge stone bridge, which was in surprisingly good condition for its age, and headed up the street. Large garbage containers blocked most of the pathways anymore, leaving very few places were people could get past. Down one alley, and then the next, she realized she was headed in the direction of which she had first arrived. This was confirmed when she saw, off to her right and across a small bridge, the Victory Hotel. And standing in front was Charlie. She approached him, not bothering to mask the sound of her footsteps.

"You're a hard man to find." Tatya murmured, stopping at his side to look up at the decrepit structure. Rain trickled down her forehead and tried to run into her eyes, forcing her to wipe her face occasionally.

Charlie didn't seem to be bothered by the rain, and seemed intent on the building. "I'd ask you how things went with the Hand that Bites, but I'm sure you're not going to tell me. You have more questions, right?"

She looked at him and blinked. "You have to be the most straight-forward man I've met in this place thus far."

"Hey, I can't tell you everything, doesn't mean I can't tell you anything. I want this thing solved as much as you do. The word around the club had been that something bad happened to Zoe. I'm guessing if you're back, then it's true."

Tatya gave one curt, affirmative nod, and looked back up at the building before them, trying to imagine what it used to look like. "She's in a coma."

"Geez…" He shook his head, digesting what she had just said.

"Reza has re-surfaced as well."

At first, what Tatya said didn't seem to register, and then he swiftly looked at her, a concerned look on his face. "That's not possible."

"I've seen him."

"Why didn't he come to see me?"

"Would he?"

"You don't know Jericho like I do. May not have known him as long as Zoe, but I got the feeling the minute he got me on the phone that he wasn't letting go of this story no matter how dangerous it was. He knew what he was getting himself into. If he were back, he would have contacted me."

"You're sure?"

"Definitely. I gotta tell you, this has got me worried. Are you sure it was him?"

"I studied the photo. Trust me; it was either him, or a very good double."

"I'm not doubting you… its just weird that Jericho wouldn't have at least called me to follow up."

"I agree; it is strange. What sort of things did Zoe want to know? What places did she visit while she was here? What did you tell her?"

"Strange isn't the word for it. I told her about this place, for one. This was the last lead I gave Reza before he disappeared. She came here, and then revisited me later at the Fringe. Told me that it wasn't a hotel, but didn't say exactly what it was, and I didn't want to know. Gave me an old photo she had found of me with some friends while she was searching one of the rooms. She said this mysterious girl lead her to the room."

"Do you have the photo with you?"

He nodded, pulled it out of his coat pocket, and offered it to Tatya without hesitation. "This was taken by a friend of ours, over ten years ago."

Tatya looked at the picture, and drew in a sharp breath. "April."

"Yeah, that's her. Has she changed much?"

Tatya sighed. "Which room did she find this in?"

"Room 201, April's old room."

She blinked. "What room number?"

"201… why?"

_By the balance… the same room number._

"What is it?"

He was watching her now, trying to read her expressions and understand what was going on inside her head. Quickly, she shifted thoughts around and put a blank expression on her face. Shaking her head, she sighed.

"It's nothing. Let's get in out of the rain, shall we?" Tatya made her way up the steps before Charlie could argue, and gently pushed on the door, which had obviously been left cracked by the last person in or out of it. It groaned open, and she crossed the threshold without giving it a thought.

"Wait…hey!" Charlie called after her quietly, following her inside. "You shouldn't be in here…"

"Don't you mean 'we'?" Tatya asked, grinning mischievously at him from over her shoulder as she stepped further inside. "It's hard to believe anyone once lived here."

The place was practically falling apart. It appeared to be so long since anyone had given the building any loving attention, and its wrinkles had more than begun to show. Dingy, unclean floors, walls covered in dirt, cobwebs, and stained with cigarette smoke; and covered with gang taggings. It was hard to see what this unloved, unwashed room might have been ten years ago.

"A lot changes in ten years." Charlie murmured, falling into step just to the left of Tatya, looking around. She could see he was remembering how this place was then, and trying to burn out of his mind the image that now lay before him. "My god… this place…"

"This used to be your home."

"Yes. Ten years ago, before the collapse." He was already walking towards the stairs, and Tatya followed him. In the upper hall, Charlie stopped at the first door on their right, hesitating just at the entrance, before taking two steps inside.

"This room?" Tatya inquired.

"It was mine."

All that remained was a tattered old mattress, and a strange piece of machinery that someone had gone through a lot of trouble to make sure never got used again. Small parts of the machine lay scattered on the floor. Tatya recognized this piece of machinery immediately, even with some of its components missing.

"What is that thing…?" Charlie's gaze had followed hers to the broken down machine.

"It's medical. Some sort of life support system or something."

"How do you know?"

"I've seen one just like it…before." Tatya avoided the subject of the hospital as best she could. "Where was April's room?"

Charlie looked to her, nodded, and led her out into the hall, past what might have been an old computer terminal. Right behind the terminal, was the door to another room. 201. Charlie hesitated again.

"I'm not sure I want to see…"

"It's too late to clutch to your memories of what this place was, Charlie. All that is left of this piece is a worn out shell of what used to be a home. If you falter here, where do you pick yourself up again? Will you continue to push what has happened from your mind?"

"I'm not—"

"You are. I'm not telling you to give up your memories. I'm telling you not to let your memories control you and keep you from making vital decisions. Everyone has a skeleton in their closet, or a memory they don't want tarnished. But that should never get in the way of doing the right thing."

Pushing onward, Tatya reached for the doorknob, and began to turn it.

"Wait."

She drew in a deep breath, preparing for a sigh and the frustration that would follow.

"If we're going to do this, I'm going in first."

Tatya looked up at him and nodded, stepping away from the door in order to let him pass through first. She knew that whatever he saw on the other side of that door would change him forever. He couldn't go on thinking of this place as the home he had once occupied. There were too many images now imprinted in his mind that were contrary to that fact. She understood why he had avoided coming back. He didn't want to see it as it was now. The door opened with a creaking groan of old wood in rusted hinges.

Tatya peeked around him to get a look at the room. It was empty, except for a thread-bare rug and large armoire.

"This was her room…"

"You talk about her as if she doesn't exist anymore." It was difficult to contain the dejected tone in her voice. "Why do you insist upon talking about her as if she is dead? Because you don't want to admit that her being alive, and in Arcadia, could be the truth –or are you afraid?"

He shook his head, and stepped slowly into the room, walking to the window. "I thought you had me all figured out."

She arched an eyebrow and crossed her arms, leaning against the door jam. "You think I analyze too much."

"I think you are obsessed with understanding people, with knowing them. I think you care too much."

"I don't care."

"I don't believe you, and I'm sure if April is still alive, she doesn't either. She was good at understanding people. She read people better than most."

"She still does."

He turned to look back at her. "Why are you doing this –because she told you to?"

"Does it really matter to you why I am here? Or are you stalling in order to keep me from seeing through you -to what really matters."

"Do you always answer a question with a question?"

A satisfied smirk crossed her face. This seemed to irritate him, and he turned to look out the window again.

"You told me to forget."

"And what makes you think you should listen to me? Since when was being a puppet dancing on a string part of your repertoire? You, Emma, and April all walked to the beat of your own drum once. She's told me. I've heard stories about all of you. Do you really think forcing yourself to act differently will change who you are… and who you once were? You're hiding the truth about yourself behind a lead curtain, in the hopes that no one will see your weaknesses. So you didn't believe her. So what? Don't waste my time by giving me the martyr routine. And when did I say to forget her? I told you not to spend your time praying she'll come back. She can't."

He turned to look at her again. "She can't?"

"Not even if she wanted to. She's lost her ability to shift."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"So you will see the futility in getting your hopes up, and so you will stop secretly beating your fists against your chest and praying for forgiveness."

Charlie blinked, and seemed to turn these words over and over in his mind. His expression changed from defensive to aggravated.

Tatya arched an eyebrow. "Did I say something significant?"

Charlie cleared his throat, and shaking his head, leaned against the window sill. "Yes and no. Your religious reference just made me think of something."

"Oh? Do tell."

He sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck with one of his hands. "What all has she told you? About the past, I mean?"

"As you can imagine, she only lets us in on things when she feels it's vital, so we don't hear too much. I've heard most of my stories about you and the others when she was vocalizing her concerns on how you were. As for the whole 'saving the balance' story, I've heard a great deal more theory from others than I have fact from her."

"So she never told you about Cortez?" He shook his head. "Surprising since he's the one that got this whole thing started."

"I'm guessing you mean the transient with the accent, the one who showed her the path to Arcadia."

"Yes…the one who—"

Tatya held up her hand to stop him and shook her head. "Let me clarify a few things before you go on. Cortez was not responsible for all that happened. It would have occurred even if he had not been there. But, if he had not interfered, things may have become much worse."

"He's the one that put those ideas into her head…"

"Yes, he is; and he helped to save the worlds in the process, even though it cost him his life."

Charlie had been prepared to cut her off until those final words sunk in. "He's dead?"

"Yes. He died protecting April."

"My god…I had no idea."

She shrugged. "You had no way of knowing. Now, what about my religious reference -how did that come to remind you of Cortez?"

"Cortez had a friend on Hope Street, some sort of priest."

"Do you know his name?"

He shook his head. "We were never formally introduced. Only reason I heard about him was because April mentioned visiting him a couple times, said he helped put her in touch with someone who could get her important papers. She didn't tell you?"

Tatya shrugged it off. April didn't tell her a lot of things, but she wasn't about to willingly admit that here, and especially to him. "It didn't come up. As I said, she has her secrets."

"True. She didn't feel it was important to tell Emma and me everything…and we were her best friends."

"-Are. You are her best friends. Unless you've recently taken up the notion that she's no longer your friend. If she had told you everything there was to know, she would not only have endangered your lives and entangled you in a mess she was already very much involved in, but the chances would have been real good that you would have felt she was lying to you to hide the truth anyway. Which -if I may remind you- you did."

He sighed, and nodded solemnly, rubbing at his chin. "What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to go see this friend at the church, this priest."

"About Zoe? They don't even know each other."

"And I'm certain you would know if he did." Sarcasm dripped from her voice. She was more than annoyed. She was as livid as she could get without showing it. All this time spent mulling around, chasing leads, and April had withheld facts that might have helped. Choking back a sigh, she made her way towards the door.

"I need the whole story. No, this priest probably won't know anything about Zoe. However, he may know information about something else I'm looking into. Thanks for the tip, however unwilling you were to lend it out."

Charlie followed, and shut the door behind him as they stepped back out onto the street. As they headed back towards the crossroads, he seemed deep in thought, and Tatya could only guess what about. Maybe it was about April. Maybe it was about everything that they'd said. Maybe it was about what shoes he would wear tonight when the club opened. At that moment, it didn't matter.

As they parted ways at the center of the crossroads, under the old clock, Tatya had the strangest feeling that when she saw him, or any of this part of Newport again… it would be under completely different circumstances.

9.

Hope Street Cathedral was as run down as the rest of Newport, if not worse. From the outside, it appeared that it had not only gone a few rounds with a wrecking ball, but a flame thrower and spray paint cans as well. The surrounding area was cordoned off by large concrete road guards, supposedly put up to keep people out, but only managing to keep garbage in. The tag markings on the face of the church were familiar to Tatya. She had seen these markings before, in different places on the crossroads, and on the face of the Victory Hotel as well. Had the whole of Newport been over-run with hoodlums? Was no one willing to stand up and fight?

What vandalism hadn't done, the sands of time had completed. One of the Cathedral's turrets had fallen, and the roof of the once obviously beautiful building was almost completely gone, revealing only the skeletal remains of wooden beams that were fighting to remain in existence against the unforgivable elements.

The rain and the fog had not dispersed, and all of it, combined with the cold, made for a dreary and dark atmosphere. Tatya could only guess that this place had not been touched since the collapse. There would be no priest here. No prayers. No mourning the dead. The place itself was a tomb; a broken testament to what had been, and to what had fallen.

"It was beautiful once, or so I hear."

The voice behind her startled her, and she whirled on her heel, balling her hands into fists. The young white kid before her couldn't be more than 16 years old. He wasn't looking at her, but at the church. This would have caused normal people to relax, as if by looking at the church and not them, they were safe. Tatya, however, remained tense, like a coiled viper ready to strike.

"My boys over there said you gave them a beating. They'd like to pay you back for it." He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb, in the direction of what might have been some old apartment buildings across from the old underground train station entrance.

Tatya glanced quickly in the direction he had pointed, and noticed two of the goons from before. The ones that had survived.

"Invite them over, if you'd like." The usual cold, hard tone issued from Tatya's lips. Sure, they might have had the jump on her again. And they might even be armed, but Tatya's patience with people hindering her mission was beginning to wear to a very thin line. "I just hope they can do a better job than they did last time."

The young man chuckled and looked her up and down. "You're alright. A little bold, but alright. What are you doing on this side of Newport, girl? You must be looking for trouble, pretty thing like you."

"If you have no intention on using me as a punching bag, I have things to do. If you're still itching for a fight, get a move on. It's my time you're wasting."

"Oh? Wasting your time? You were just looking up at an old church. Are you crazy or something?"

Tatya's eyes narrowed. "Maybe I am."

"You had to be to walk into this neighborhood unarmed."

The young man's friends were crossing the street, heading in their direction. This could quickly turn from a conversation into a free-for-all. She had to think fast, if she intended to try and talk her way out of this.

"I tell you what. If you beat me, I'll tell you what I'm here for. If I beat you, you tell me where I can find the priest that used to run this cathedral."

The young man blinked and raised a hand. His buddies backed off.

"You're looking for Father Raul?"

"If that's the priest's name, yes."

"What do you want him for?"

"He knows a friend of mine. I'm hoping he can give me some information I need."

"Information, huh. How much is this information worth?"

"Invaluable, and dangerous."

"And you think that Father Raul can help you? He's just a priest."

"He may just be a priest to you, but he's important to me. I need to find him so that I can locate information on an old friend of his, who has contact with a friend of mine. She sent me here to find him." It wasn't the complete truth, but it would do. What were the chances that this young man would know anything about April? "Supposedly he knows someone who can get me in touch with another person who can get me papers I need."

"You're talking illegal papers…aren't you?"

"Yes. Supposedly the priest knows someone who can procure them."

"If you're talking about Burns, he's dead."

"Burns?"

"Your friend sent you out here… and didn't even tell you the guy's name? You need some new friends, girl."

Tatya was becoming impatient. "Look, if you aren't planning on kicking my butt, can I just leave?"

"Just tell me the name of your friend first, maybe we can help…"

"You wouldn't know her. She's not from around here." Tatya gritted her teeth and started to move forward, intending to push past him. "I'm out of here."

"Uh-uh…" The young man pulled a gun. "The girl's name, and then you can go."

"Why the hell is it so important who she is? Get that damned gun out of my face." Tatya snarled angrily. She could feel the heat rising into her face, and she knew what would come next. _Maintain control_, she told herself, _control._

His buddies were mimicking her and laughing.

"Shoot her, Kaz."

"Yeah, shoot her and then let's loot her."

"Both of you shut up. Kaz…put the damned gun away and get back to the room. I'll deal with this one."

The voice was coming from a young black man, only slightly younger than Tatya, who had been standing in the shadows. _Just how long has he been standing there? _She wondered.

Kaz and his buddies started to whine, but one serious look from this new man sent them scurrying off in the direction of the apartments. Now, Tatya and this stranger were alone. For some reason, she felt even more uncomfortable now than with the other three. At least she knew what two of them were capable of. This stranger… balance only knew.

"Not many people come down here anymore, so they tend to get a little riled up. I would say I hope they didn't scare you, but I honestly think they're more afraid of you. Not many girls that look like you can come down here and kick their butts."

"There's not much of a challenge when a man tones his muscle and forgets his brain."

A grin appeared on the stranger's face. He stepped out of the shadows more so that she could see him better, and held out one hand for her to shake. Tatya was immediately shocked by how he was dressed. He wore a nice suit, although slightly rumpled, and good shoes. Not the normal street clothes for a gang leader. In fact, at this point, Tatya was becoming confused as to who actually led this gang that seemed to be popping up every time she let her guard down. He must have immediately noticed how she was eyeing him, because he chuckled.

"I'm not what you expected, right? Don't worry, I don't bite." He was referring to his hand, which she had not taken yet.

Hesitantly, she reached out and shook it. "Who—"

"Warren Hughes. Why don't we get out of here and go somewhere a little less conspicuous to talk, hm?" He turned and made his way away from the apartments, instead heading into another portion of Newport.

For the first time in a long time, Tatya felt confused, and a more than a little alarmed. She followed him to an all-night diner which looked like it was barely paying the bills, but the tables were clean, and the coffee didn't smell too bad. Coffee was one of the few things Tatya could say she honestly missed about not being in Stark, so when he offered her a cup, she took it gladly.

As they sat sipping coffee, he eyed her contemplatively.

"You're not from around here."

"Ooh no, I come down to the hood a lot." Sarcasm again. She couldn't help it. She was tired, hungry, angry with April, and on top of it she began to feel like she was grabbing at straws. She took a deep breath and let it out. _What is happening to you? A mission to Stark and a few headaches and suddenly you start acting like a flake. Get a grip._

He laughed. "You remind me of someone I used to know. Similar attitude; another very sharp-tongued woman."

She arched a brow. "Let me guess, she either ended up your girlfriend, or at the bottom of the ocean."

"Ouch. You got me all wrong. I'm out of the gang business."

"Oh… and that was just… what, group therapy?"

Another laugh escaped him. "No. I'm trying to keep them out of trouble, or at least trying to keep them from joining a real gang."

"How's that working for you?"

"Trust me, if they were a member of the Shakespeareans, you wouldn't be sitting here drinking coffee." He was being honest now, and she decided not to argue with him. It may have been true, it may not.

"Alright, I'll humor you. Who was this friend?"

"I never got her full name. She helped me a long time back. Got me my sister back, and helped me erase my record. Because of her I was able to start a new life."

"You make it sound like it was a long time ago. She must have made quite an impression on you." She took another sip of coffee.

He nodded. "Oh yeah, big impression. Ten years may change a lot of things, but there are some things you just can't forget. I never got the chance to thank her either. She disappeared just after Burns was shot. I just hope he got her what she needed."

Tatya nearly chocked on her coffee. _Ten years…could it be?_

"You alright?" His expression was concerned, and he reached a hand across to slap her on the back, but she raised her hand and shook her head.

"I'm fine… you said ten years?"

"Yeah… it's been a little longer than that."

"And you never got the girl's name?"

"Only her first name. She called herself—"

"April." Tatya finished.

He smiled and slapped his hand on the table top. "I knew it. The minute you came down here looking for Father Raul I knew you had to be involved somehow. Is she alive? How is she?"

Tatya raised a hand to quiet him, and his expression grew solemn.

"I'm sorry, but I can't give you any information on her right now. The situation is… dangerous. I need to find Father Raul."

"How can he help you?"

"Please. I don't have time to explain. Is he still alive?"

"Yeah. He's still alive. He lives in Metro City…but."

She stood. "Where in Metro City?"

"Near the police station." He caught her by the arm as she tried to walk past him towards the exit. "Maybe I can help. He knows me. He'll trust me."

Tatya chewed her lip while she considered it, then she nodded. Warren stood up to follow her out, and then began leading the way uptown where they could catch a taxi to Metro City.

"Being seen with me in Metro City could be dangerous."

"What's your name?" He asked, as if he hadn't heard her words.

"Annika."

"I lived on Hope Street till I was about 15, Annika. And I survived the collapse and post-collapse in Newport until I could afford to get a place elsewhere. Trust me, I can handle it."

_I'm not sure you can, Warren. I'm not sure anyone can. Zoe and April were both strong, and look where it got them. Zoe is in a coma, and April... she would have died had not chance brought me through that shift in time. So far, everyone who has stood against this darkness has disappeared, been incapacitated, has given up hope, or has ended up dead. I'm not sure any of us can handle this. The difference is…some of us…don't have a choice._

Her thoughts wandered as the taxi sped them towards their destination. Both of them remained in silence during the trip. However, Tatya's mind couldn't keep from spinning as it gathered all of the things that she had learned in these two days of searching.

_The deeper into this I sink, the more of a mess I see. In my attempt to unravel this mystery, I seem to be slipping further into it. And the more I see, the more I understand why they did what they did. I'm getting too far away from my objectives. As soon as I have spoken to Father Raul, and learned what he knows about April, and what ties he has to the past, I will go back to Arcadia with what I know. If I stay here much longer…_

_I could become totally lost in this web, and lose my footing._

_I need to go back._

_I have to go back._

_I have to…_


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Notes: _The third chapter of Oroborus. As promised, this chapter will mostly be April and Kian. Please notify me if you see any errors. I apologize for it taking so long. I had a touch of writer's block -NoodleNeko_

III. FOR HONOR

1.

Her anxiety could be no greater. April had promised herself only a year ago that she was not going to get involved with what was going on in Stark. Even the guardian had indicated that her time to rescue the balance was through, that she could go on with her life; or what was left of it. And yet, even as the words had passed from the guardian's lips, something inside her told her that it was not the truth; that somehow, fate or the balance would drag her into its strange events again and set her on another path. Part of her had longed for it; to feel needed again was exhilarating. The other part… wanted to be free of the balance and the mess that came with it.

Her first inclination had been correct. She was to become consumed in this again, woven back into the fabric of this distressing and altogether unfortunate fate that seemed to reappear every so often of its own accord. No. Not of its own accord. Someone behind the scenes was playing a very twisted game. As much as she had hated to admit it, in the passing days while she waited, she began to realize she had been right to send Tatya to Stark. And yet…April knew there would be no good news. Things would only get worse before they got better. The fate of the twin worlds was nothing if not predictable.

_Why am I always dragged into the middle of this? What part do I play?_ She asked herself over and over. _McAllen was destroyed. The Vanguard and the Church of Voltec where gone… so who was trying to manipulate the worlds this time? And was this another crazy attempt to disrupt the balance by merging the worlds through dreams? And how… how in the world would they do it? What part did the prophet play? Who was he?_ April had her theories, but many of them were just guess work; another reason to send Tatya to Stark, and the more she learned, the more her proverbial house-of-cards theories came crashing down around her.

Her Second's mission was only part of what plagued her. The Apostle -Kian- was the other difficulty she had to overcome. Though he had confessed to her that he believed his people's actions to be wrong, he had insisted that he could not raise a sword against them, and therefore could not help lead the rebels. This unshakeable faith he had was not at all accommodating, and while he was dragging his feet, the Azadi were searching, investigating everything they could possibly find out about his disappearance, and no doubt building up theories and plotting a course of action. And as if his determination where not enough, April had begun to catch herself thinking of him in other capacities rather than a technically well treated prisoner. Even the slightest idea of friendship with the man was enough to send her into spells where all she wanted to do was scream and beat her head against a tree. She barely knew the man. And since he would not break his allegiance with his people; at least not entirely; he was an enemy. The words he had spoken kept repeating over and over in her head. _He says he knows me from somewhere –that I'm familiar to him. How can this possibly be? We are from two different worlds…literally. What does he want from me?._ Agitated with her mind's unwillingness to cooperate, she grumbled and shoved several maps aside to look at one that was below them.

"If you ask me, I think you're taking this whole thing way to seriously." Crow said, eyeing her from his temporary perch on the back of the chair which she had been ignoring because standing seemed to help her concentrate, and allowed her to pace. "You should be celebrating. This is no more difficult than what you went through before, and this time you have another shifter to help you. You should be doing a jig. Here, I could do one for you…"

April looked at him and sighed, shaking her head. "That's not the point, Crow. I would rather have gone myself than send her there. If I had just listened to Zoe, things might have gone differently."

"Yeah… well, you're not one of the Venar, April. You can't see the future before it happens, you know. I mean… come on… you did the best you could, right?"

April chewed her lip, and looked back at the maps in front of her. "I could have done better."

"Beating yourself up isn't going to help. You're doing something now, doesn't that count? I mean… you sent those two out there to rescue that Apostle guy even though he's partially responsible for having you stabbed through…"

April grumbled. "Don't remind me…"

"By the way… why exactly DID you save that guy anyway? Don't tell me he's your soul mate or something?"

She had opened her mouth to reply, but practically choked on her words when Crow let that fly. Immediately, her mind began shuffling around possible defensive comments or ways of changing the subject; but she forced herself from speaking any of them aloud. If she tried to defend herself or changed the subject, she'd only cause him to suspect that his guess had been correct, which she continually told herself wasn't true. She saw the best course of action would be to play his game the way he did.

"Why, Crow? Would you be jealous?" April grinned slightly, and leaned forward so her face wasn't far from his beak.

"What? What –No. No! Not at all! I mean… you aren't my type. Yeah, that's right. Not enough… err…feathers!"

April chuckled at this and went back to the maps. They would have to move the camp again soon, to be safe. It was one of the only ways they could use to keep from being discovered, at least until either Kian caved or Tatya returned. Being honest with herself, she felt that the later was more likely, but wished for them both.

Adding to her own mild frustration, she had just pushed the man out of her mind once again to get back to the important issues at hand when there was someone pulling back the flap of her tent. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw it was one of the many nameless men that had recently joined them. He had an unhappy look on his face, but she had seen that often since first meeting him, so she did not immediately think anything of it.

"What is it?"

"The assassin to see you." He muttered in a gruff voice, putting an ugly emphasis on the word 'assassin'.

April's spirits, which were already sinking, kept going straight through the floor. _What did he want this time?_

"Show him in."

The Apostle ducked under the tent flap, and the disgruntled rebel shut the flap and went on his way. April could tell by the look on the Apostle's face that he was also not pleased with something, but this instilled a sense of satisfaction in her that was almost unreasonable. _Good. At least he's not getting too comfortable._

"You wanted something?" She kept her voice as free of emotion as possible, though her irritation was already boiling up inside. What was it about this man that the slightest glimpse of him or proximity brought up so much frustration and pent-up anger?

"Your men told me I am not allowed to leave. I was told before arriving here I would be allowed passage once we had spoken."

"Plans change." She tried not to look at him, instead focusing on the papers spread across the wood surface of the table.

He frowned. "You intend to keep me here against my will?"

"Until you've made a decision, yes." Trying to focus, as if the conversation was not bothering her, she picked up one if the parchments before her and squinted at it as if she had trouble making out the writing.

"I told you my decision…"

"Yeah yeah… you can't go against your people… I've heard all of that… twice, if I'm not mistaken. We can debate it all you like, but I have no intention of letting you go just now. Besides, if I let you go, the others would no doubt come after you anyway."

"So I'm no longer a prisoner of the Azadi, but a prisoner of the Rebellion."

These words made her whirl around to stare at him. April clenched her jaw shut and bit down on her tongue, the anger boiling up within her was nearly over-flowing. It obviously showed on her face, because the expressions on the Apostle's face shifted, and there was an underlying apologetic look in his eyes that made her only want to smack him more. _Comparing us to your people? You pompous…_

"If that's all you have to say, you can go." She muttered in clipped tones, turning her gaze to something else in the room, anything that would take her attentions off him.

"I don't intend to leave until we have resolved this."

"Considering the fact that you are unarmed, that's a bold statement, Azadi." There was a cold edge to her voice. "You are not being mistreated here. You were rescued from being assassinated; you have been fed, and provided lodging. I have made sure that the others have not bothered you, and your time is your own. You haven't even been asked to do any of the work. The only expectation I have is that you are not to leave the camp. Is that too much to ask of someone who is accustomed to following orders from murderers?"

"My people—"

"Massacred innocent women and children who were living in a camp that was supposed to protect them!" She allowed her voice to show the full volume of her anger. "They not only did this, they tried to kill the one who was about to stand up against them. Doesn't that tell you something? Why do you still defend them!"

"And why are you so unwilling to see that not everyone who follows our beliefs is evil?"

April pushed the chair in at the table to get it out of her way as she began pacing. The chair slammed into the table, rattling the things that lay on top of it and startling Crow.

"Hey hey!" he hollered. "Watch the temper..."

April did not reply to crow, but continued at the Azadi. "I have not once attacked your beliefs. I have only attacked those who use their beliefs as a weapon for doing harm against others. Open your eyes, Apostle! Or are you still too blinded by your own faith to see the truth?"

Kian's jaw clenched, and April sensed that she had struck some sort of blow, though she had no idea about what. They stood several feet apart from one another, unmoving, and in utter silence for several long minutes.

"Why are you so intent on keeping me here?" His voice was calm now, almost a whisper. April tried to read what lay behind the solemn expression on his face that had replaced the angry look he had worn moments ago.

"As long as there is a risk that you could be a spy… or that you might go back to your people and tell them what you know, we cannot let you go. Killing you would make us no better than your own people, and if we set you free and you don't go back to your own people… there is still the chance they would find you and kill you themselves." She paused. "And I am still holding out hope that you will change your mind."

"So you only keep me here because I am a danger to the Rebellion, a danger to myself, and a possible asset?"

"I'm sorry if that displeases you."

Kian's jaw tightened, and then he opened his mouth to speak; but merely shook his head and left the tent.

As he exited, she thought she saw him glance back. April couldn't help but think back, and realize that they had had a similar conversation the day before Tatya had left, only three days ago… and that he had left angry. _What's changed? He seems more serious than angry now. Has something happened in the last three days that I have not noticed?_

The plans and maps on the table were for now forgotten. Another puzzle had presented itself before her, and she found this one much more demanding. Something was up.

2.

"I'm guessing she told you the news." Kirin murmured, having gathered from the unhappy expression on the Azadi's face that there had been another disagreement. The Azadi had only been with them for three days, but neither April nor the Apostle had mellowed out at all. In fact, the longer they were together, the worse things seemed to get, and Kirin was beginning to wonder if bringing the man here had been a wise decision after all. If his leader was too angry with the Apostle to think straight, she might make a decision that would kill them all.

Taking a seat on a fallen log that had been placed near the fire, Kian regarded the rebel, not bothering to disguise his irritation any longer. "You knew she would keep me here?"

Kirin grinned sheepishly and shrugged. "Would it have done me any good to tell you she intended to keep you here? I had orders to get you here in any way possible. I chose the easiest route." He poked at the fire with a stick, moving the logs around, all the while really watching Kian over the blaze. "She doesn't plan to kill you, if that's any consolation."

"What makes you so sure? Did she tell you?"

Kirin chuckled and shook his head, motioning for the Azadi to move over and sit by him so they could talk without shouting. "No. I merely guessed. Not only are you of more use to us alive, but I don't think she could bring herself to give the order. Not where you are concerned, anyway. After all, it would be a waste of time to rescue you, and then kill you, wouldn't it? And such a waste of manpower too."

Having been beckoned, Kian hesitatingly moved to sit by this stranger. "You sound as if you are familiar with her. How long have you known one another?"

"A number of years, actually, though she did not come to rely on me so much until… well, until after you. I suppose I have you to thank for that." Kirin chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck, which had become a nervous habit for him.

"How did she survive?"

Kirin immediately knew what the man was asking about, and images seemed to rise up from the deep corners of his mind as he thought back on what happened.

"Tatya rescued her."

_If she hadn't shifted to that place when she had…and to think it had been an accident._

From that moment on, Kirin himself had been insisting that fate had taken a hand in preventing the demise of their leader by causing Tatya to shift to an area she had not intended to; which in fact did happen. Kirin could understand Tatya's unwillingness to believe it was fate. She tried to be the logical one, and left herself very little room in her life for religion and belief in 'fate'.

"That was the one…"

Kirin nodded. "She is April's Second; her most trusted. April tells her things that she tells no one else. Tatya's a good fighter, and a brilliant woman." Kirin watched the expressions on the Apostle's face and saw the look of doubt at his mentioning Tatya was a woman. "I know her abilities are strange, and frightening…but you have to know that she means no harm to anyone who does not mean harm to others. I've seen her go to great lengths to help others in the past… including April."

"Where has she gone?"

"I'm not sure. April probably sent her on another mission." Kirin had no choice but to lie to him. Explaining to him about Stark would have taken too long, and might even have been dangerous.

"It must be important for her to send her Second away and not someone else."

Kirin nodded, and turned his attentions to the fire, poking at it to preoccupy himself so he wouldn't have to look the man directly in the eye. Even now he could feel the Apostle's gaze on him, and had the feeling that he wasn't buying into the story that he was selling. "That's an adequate assumption."

"I get the feeling there is more to this story."

Kirin coughed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I honestly wouldn't know, Apos—"

"Call me Kian…please. That title does not belong to me any longer, as I have told you before. What do you know about…Tatya, was it?"

"Only what she's willing to let someone find out, unfortunately. I knew her before I entered the rebellion, it was honestly a surprise when she showed up and rescued April."

"What about her ability? I've never heard of anything like it."

"I don't know much. What I gather is someone was playing around with magic and cast a spell on her. I knew her before she had learned to control her anger better… she could be a powder keg if someone rubbed her the wrong way." Kirin ran a hand through his hair, chuckling. "She disappeared for a while, and when she came back, she was much calmer… and also a lot stronger."

"She just… disappeared?"

Kirin forced a shrug and an embarrassed smile. "As I said, she's secretive. She and April are a lot alike in that respect." He looked at Kian and then motioned with his head to April's tent. "I get the feeling there are some major unresolved issues between you two. Is it true you were just confessing your desire to change the path of the Azadi when she was nearly killed?"

Kian hung his head slightly and stared into the fire. It didn't take an idiot to notice that he didn't like being reminded of that.

"What part shames you, Kian? The part where you confessed a desire for change? Or the part where April was nearly killed?" It was a very direct question, but Kirin was tired of people beating about the bush. When April and he had first met, they had both agreed that people in Arcadia were far too good at telling stories and not very good at actually giving information.

"I took no pleasure in watching Vamon's men stab April, if that is what you are implying. And I do not regret bearing my soul to her."

_There really is something between these two_, he thought. There was no way that April would risk one of her best, not to mention her second in command, to rescue a man she merely thought was an asset to the rebels. There was some sort of emotional bond between them, and whatever it was, it was obvious Kian was feeling the weight of it too, though he might not understand it yet.

Part of him felt bad for them both. A time of war was not a good time for any kind of relationship, and if whatever they were feeling grew deeper… this entire situation could become messy, and with very painful results. Though Kirin did not know April extremely well, he felt that she deserved better than that the pain that would come from a fly-by-night sort of romance. He could tell she had already been through enough pain in her life already…being stuck in this world with no way to go home. Though Kirin had been able to adapt to living in Arcadia, and really didn't miss Stark that much; he knew that things were different for April. Though she had carved out a careful existence for herself here, he could only imagine the amount of heartbreak she could be suffering now knowing that, going home was almost imminent.

As he looked upon this man sitting before him, he saw two potential problems for April. One is that he might never decide to help the Rebels, and they would be in an uncomfortable situation for the entire time that he was held captive, or their relationship would change, and confuse the entire situation. Neither showed any merit.

"Do me a favor, Kian."

"Hmm?" He had been deep in his thoughts, and looked up from his pondering stare at the fire to look upon Kirin.

"Whatever you decide to do…do the right thing. Make sure that this war ends peacefully, whatever you have to do to see it happen that way. Everyone's been through enough pain and suffering to last two lifetimes. Both sides have seen loss. When it's time to make a decision… just make sure you give it a lot of thought and make the right one. For April's sake…for everyone's."

"I can't…"

"I'm not asking you to side with the Rebellion or the Azadi. I'm just asking that before you really make a decision… before you give your final answer… give it a lot of thought. A lot is resting on this. Including the lives of two people I care very much about. If either April… or Tatya end up dead… You'll answer to me."

"Kirin!"

He looked up as another rebel approached, one of other surprisingly talented young female recruits that had joined after Benrime's arrest. He didn't even know her name, but every part of him was thankful for people like her. People who were willing to stand up for freedom; who were willing to recognize tyranny when it stared them in the face.

"Yes?"

"News has come from abroad." She handed him a piece of rolled parchment, tied off with a piece of red cord. "It's come from the east."

Kirin gently took the parchment, untied the cord, and rolled it out to read. He could see from the corner of his eye that Kian was eyeing the paper with considerable interest.

"Thank you."

The rebel woman nodded and turned, rushing off to notify that the message had been delivered.

"What is it?" Kian asked, anxious to know what was going on.

"I thought you didn't want to get involved in the affairs of the rebels?" There was a mocking sound to his voice, but it wasn't true mockery, only an attempt at teasing.

"I am allowed to ask, am I not?"

"It contains two items. If you want to hear them, come with me. April must hear this at once."

Kirin stood and headed back to April's tent, and Kian followed without any hesitation at all.

3.

After only moments of waffling, in which April was practically hanging on the edge of her seat, Kirin finally got down to the reason he and Kian had ventured to her tent in such a hurry. As she watched them, she noticed that Kirin looked directly at her and held himself straight as if in soldier's parade rest, while Kian did his best to keep his eyes away from hers and leaned against a tent post.

"News has arrived from the East. Elias was seen passing through a neighboring town with several Azadi soldier's in tow. And Benrime is to be transported to Sadir day after next to stand trial for treason."

April was un-surprised by the development that had taken place around Elias. Though she had not known how deep his treachery might go, she was certain when she had sent him off to Sadir that he would either die, or betray them in some way. She could have kept him behind and sent someone else, but it seemed that since she had possibly sniffed out a mole in their midst, it was better for them to get rid of him as soon as possible and deal with small risks, rather than continue to let him stay in their camp and add to the list of secrets he knew and information he could give away to the enemy. Because she had expected this, she already knew what to do. What concerned her now was the situation with Benrime. April felt she couldn't just let her get shipped off to Sadir.

_She's done so much for me in the past; and for the rebellion. If it had not been for her, I might never have known what path I should take when I first came to Marcuria. Benrime has risked her life and her business to help the rebellion. She needs our help._

"As for Elias, until we find out his exact whereabouts, there is little we can do. We will relocate the camp," She pulled a map out from under a stack of papers, ignoring them as the papers slid to the floor, searched out a location on the map, and then tapped it with her index finger. "Here."

"But Tatya…"

"Tatya is resourceful, Kirin. She knows these forests better than some of us, and should have no trouble locating the new camp. You and I both know that she would not approve us risking what's left of this rebellion simply because it might cause her a little trouble if we move the camp."

Kirin hung his head, and then nodded. "And what of Benrime?"

April mulled this over in her mind. Sending people into Marcuria to retrieve Benrime would be almost as dangerous as when she sent Kirin, Elias, and Tatya to Sadir. They could have traps laying in wait for any of the leftover rebellion members, and considering how the townspeople felt about Benrime, they would be prepared for possible uprisings anyhow. She couldn't trust this to just anyone.

"I'd like you to go, Kirin."

"Me?" He blinked and looked up at her in surprise.

This expression reminded her that this would be Kirin's first mission alone. Was he nervous?

"Yes, you. Do you think you can handle it?"

"Yes… of course…" He stammered, trying to sort through what he was agreeing to.

It was then that April noticed Kian was now standing, and walked to stand beside Kirin, placing a hand hesitatingly on his shoulder.

"I want to help."

Immediately there was a tinge of suspicion in the back of her mind. What was he up to?

"You… why?" Kirin stammered, now turning his attention to the Apostle. "I thought you didn't want to fight against your people."

"I won't fight them, but this does not mean I cannot help. I don't want to stand by and watch as another innocent is shipped to Sadir for termination."

Kirin turned to look at April for advice, but she didn't notice this because she was too busy focusing on something far off in the distance, or at least it seemed that way by the blank stare on her face. Again, she mulled it over. If he was up to something, sending him out there would be dangerous. However, if his concerns were genuine, he might actually be beginning to change his mind, and to refuse him would be to pull the plug on any possible chance for getting his aid.

"Alright."

Kirin seemed to open his mouth to protest, but April shook her head, silently telling him that argument would get them no where at this point.

"You'll have to be in disguise. Both of you. If the Azadi learn who you are, they may detain and question, or they may kill you on sight. Since we have no idea what we're up against, take weapons, but take ones that are easily concealable. The less noticeable you are, the safer you and Benrime will be."

Kirin nodded grudgingly. He knew there was no arguing with her. "Since we have you here, we should discuss a strategy and possible options for escape. Though we don't have much information, we should try and do what we can to plan this ahead, so there's little room for failure."

"I couldn't agree more." April motioned for the two of them to have a seat on the bench on the other side of the small table and sat down in the only chair.

As they took a seat, April started in, not giving Kirin the chance to speak first.

"With Benrime in Friar's Keep, the Journeyman will be left untended, and you should be able to conceal yourselves there. Benrime told me once of an extra key kept at the back under a watering pail concealed by a stack of hay bails. You will have to arrive there at nightfall if you are to go unnoticed. Trying to enter the Journeyman with people about during the day is far too risky. If for any reason you cannot gain entry to the inn, keep yourself hidden in one of the small booths towards the back of one of the taverns at South Gate. With the amount of traffic in those places, you're not as likely to come under scrutiny."

"Should we obtain supplies while we're there?"

"No. It's too risky. One of the other merchants in the marketplace might recognize Kian from his time in Marcuria, and that would cause trouble."

"I agree." Kian murmured. "I made no attempt to hide the fact that I was Azadi, and did not bother to hide my face. There is no doubt my passing through the marketplace so many times during my time there has left its mark on the people."

"So when do we get more supplies?"

"For now, we will have to rely on the sources we established in the city to send the goods to the normal location for pickup. We have to keep a low profile to avoid alarming the Azadi much more than we already have. Keep in mind, they have Elias, so they may also be aware of what you look like. Disguises will be important."

"But disguise as what? Normal cloaks will not help us." Kirin countered. "And neither will dressing as magicals. We would immediately be tossed into the ghetto, and would get no where near Friar's Keep. What can we possibly dress as that will help us get close to that building?"

She had to think. It was a good question. Though normally dressing as magicals would not have been dangerous in Marcuria ten years ago, with the Azadi here… it made things even more complicated.

Glancing up at them to see what they might be thinking, if they were at all, she caught a smile on Kian's face. "You have an idea?"

"A foolish one; but one that might work."

"Let's have it."

"We dress as soldiers."

"Are you crazy?" Kirin's mouth had dropped open as if he were shocked the Azadi had mentioned it. "An idea like that could never work twice."

"It fooled them into believing you were the guards assisting my execution, and allowed you to steal me away from Sadir. How could it fail now?"

"There is no way that they would fall for the same trick twice. Their bound to expect we'll try it again, especially if Elias has given them what he has on us."

"Which isn't much –he was intentionally kept out of many of our meetings, Kirin, and for good reason."

"They will expect us not to try it again because we would expect them to know we would. It will confuse them." Kian's side of the argument was becoming more heated to counter-act the passion with which Kirin was using.

"It's not a fool-proof plan. We need a fool-proof plan if we are going to succeed at this. If we base our attacks and countermeasures on guesses it will get what little bit is left of this rebellion crushed into the ground." Kirin argued back.

April shook her head. "Arguing about this is going to get us no-where. The truth is there is no fool-proof plan for this mission, Kirin. There are too many variables, and all of it relies on the educated guesses we can make out. If that bothers you, you shouldn't be here."

Kirin opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it, and nodded grudgingly. "Forgive me."

April sighed and ran a hand through her hair, using her non-existent nails to scratch gently at her scalp. She could remember a time when a full manicure would have been a normal routine in her life. Now, it would have been nice just to have a nail brush.

"You'll have to improvise on a lot of it. Kian may be able to help you, if he's willing. He should know a great deal about the Azadi's military tactics, and also probably knows the grounds around Friar's Keep fairly well. And he's had experience in their army, so he will know how you should act so as not to attract far too much unwanted attention. That is all we can do. Try to follow what we have planned out to the letter, where possible, and bring me a full report when you get back."

"When do we leave?" Kian murmured; standing and preparing to follow Kirin out of the tent.

"Tomorrow morning. Early."

Kian and Kirin both nodded in agreement, and moved to leave, Kirin bringing up the end instead of leading, allowing Kian to exit first.

"Oh, and Kirin…"

Kirin turned back to look at April. Kian had already left the tent.

"If you find Elias while you're there… you know what to do with him."

He didn't even bother to reply, but simply nodded his head as he exited.

_Now all we can do is hope for the best… Benrime, I hope you're okay. The Balance and the Rebellion both will have those Azadi heads on a platter if they've done you any harm._

_If it were not for you…_

4.

He knew she would be disappointed in him. He knew that she would curse him for what he planned to do. But to be held in captivity by his own only to be kidnapped on the day of his execution to be held captive by the rebellion… was too much. A part of him yearned to help her, to give up his ties to the Azadi completely, trust only in the goddess' decisions to put them together, and stand by her side. But his teachings repeatedly got in his way. It was wrong to raise a sword against those who had raised him, protected him, and brought him up to be who he was.

_A monster…they made me into a monster and I thank them for it. What have I turned myself into?_

He had to escape. It was far too difficult to make decisions when there was pressure from all sides to cave in the rebellion's favor. There was also how he was feeling to consider. Her resurrection from the dead had taken place too fast for his mind to comprehend. Just days earlier, while awaiting execution, he had thought back on how he had wronged her; only to find out she had been living in hiding for a year. A part of him was angry. He had been lied to over and over again the entire journey to Marcuria's woods. Tatya and Kirin had told him he would speak to the leader, and then he would be free. And not once had they mentioned their leader's name. They had danced around the subject, or changed it altogether. There had been so much secrecy. It made Kian almost angry to think about it.

And yet, he was overjoyed that she was alive, that she had been able to escape death. It gave him faith in the goddess to know that his entire reason for questioning his teachings was still alive, and there was still a chance to learn why they had been so abruptly brought together and so quickly torn apart.

He had to know where he knew her from, but he needed to be free; to think for himself and be safe from the pressures of the every roving eyes of her comrades.

The journey from Marcuria's forest to the city was a quiet one. Periodically, Kian glanced at his 'partner' to notice him obviously mulling things over in his mind. He seemed preoccupied with something, whether the mission or otherwise. It should have bothered him more that he was following this man into a mission that was very ill-informed. He should have been furious with the man for lying to him. And yet… he wasn't. For some reason, Kian found himself empathizing with Kirin. It was obvious he had feelings for Tatya; which explained his loyalty to April even in times where he seemed to want to argue with her continuously. Somehow, Kian wondered if Kirin's feelings towards Tatya were not unlike his own feelings towards April. He wouldn't dare call it love, he had never experienced such an emotion for anyone so far, his faith and the goddess had preoccupied his mind during his time with the Azadi, and now his escape had preoccupied his mind during his imprisonment under the rebels. Not love in the terms he knew of, but a deep fondness, a concern for her well-being. He had noticed himself thinking about her at times he should have been focused on a plan of escape. Kian had caught himself staring at her from across tables; hanging on her words. Her passion in what she believed was not unlike his own passion for his faith. He admired her, but it was more than that. This thought alarmed him, and re-affirmed the idea that it was better if he left them before anything else happened between them.

_It has to be this way. There's no other choice._

"Kian –we're here."

Kirin's voice seemed to bring him back into full conscious-ness of where he was, and he looked up at the large stone wall that the Azadi had restored when the occupation of Marcuria had first begun, after they had chased out the Tyren and restored order. It had originally been meant to keep people out, but now the stone wall was only a representation of the prison that these people were suffering within. He had seen that suffering on his walk through Marcuria to question the strange girl at Friar's Keep, and again when he and the men the emissary had loaned him broke into the Journeyman sought out the rebels that the six where calling traitors.

"It won't be difficult to get inside. Getting out's another matter. Man this armor is too tight, what Azadi did Zeren steal this armor from… a midget?" Kirin grumbled, dismounting and leading his elgwan to a grassy patch.

This complaint forced a chuckle from Kian. "I said the uniforms would get us into Friar's Keep. I did not claim they would be comfortable."

"I'm going to need a special spell just to get myself out of this thing. Call the wizard's guild, I need a miracle!" Kirin chuckled, adjusting the helmet on his head. "The armor's too small, helmet's too big. If this crazy scheme works…"

"It will work." Kian assured him, putting on his own helmet. It had been forever since he had been in one of these uniforms. _If anything, it will work all too well…_

Kirin looked up at the sky. "Mid-day. Too early to go to Friar's Keep. Even after we obtain the documents, they're still far less likely to pay attention to us when they're sleepy. Might be better if we scout out the Journeyman and wait until later. If we move too soon, we'll regret it."

"I agree." Kian didn't bother to nod. With the helmet, it was near impossible to move your head in that direction.

Kirin's reaction to the looks of the Journeyman were well justified. The place had been closed for nearly a year. Though Benrime had left someone to tend to it when she was arrested, they could not do what Benrime had done, and had given up and closed up shop. The place was boarded up with dusty windows, and the sign out front hung by one hinge. Even Kian's heart fell to see this, having seen it at its former glory. What had they done to the place?

"By the Balance what have they done…"

Kian wished he could have found the words to apologize to him for what the Azadi had done to his home. But there was nothing he could do, and he knew that words could not help them now. To think of his own involvement in these atrocities only made him feel ill to his stomach.

_What have I done? What have I allowed my people to do? Why didn't I try to stop them sooner? Why didn't I listen to Gorman?_

He kept these thoughts of self-loathing to himself. If he had voiced them to Kirin, the rebel would no doubt suspect Kian of trying to ply for sympathy. There was no possible way he could ever believe that Kian's feelings about what his people were doing were genuine.

"Kian…I found a way in. The back door was unlocked."

The ex-Apostle had been so lost in thought, he had not seen Kirin go around back, and only regained consciousness of what was going on around him when Kirin called his name. Kirin stood at the far side of the building, having crossed the small stream that ran just outside the journeyman and ran under the steps that lead to the inn. He was beckoning to Kian, and so he followed, unsure of where the rebel could be leading him. There wasn't a great deal to take note of around the back side of the inn. No doubt most of the goods that the innkeeper had stored had been either confiscated by the Azadi, or pilfered after the closing of the inn.

Kirin led him to a section of the cellar that was partially above ground, with small, slit windows, just barely big enough for a man to get through.

"I couldn't find Benrime's key. She must have taken it with her… or maybe someone else found it. We'll have to go in through one of the windows."

Kian grimaced, but nodded and watched Kirin get down into a prone position and begin squeezing his way into the aperture of the one open window. It took some work, but Kirin and Kian both managed to get through the small window, though Kian had quite a bit more trouble because of the bulky armor.

The inside of the place was covered with the dust and grime that gives evidence to long disuse.

"We'll stay in one of the rooms upstairs." Kirin grasped a torch and prepared to light it, because the daylight did not pass well through the cellar's dirty windows, but Kirin grasped the torch and stopped him.

"Better that we navigate in the dark rather than risk the soldier's seeing a stray light in a room that's supposed to be abandoned."

Kirin seemed to think about this, and then nodded. "You're probably right. I hope you can find your way here…I shouldn't have any trouble. I spent quite a bit of time here before…" He stopped himself.

Kian knew what he meant to say… he meant before the capture of Benrime, and the destruction of the rebel camp. It was yet another reminder of his shortcomings; where he had gone wrong, but he could not let it bother him. After all… it was true, wasn't it?

"I will be fine. Let's move further inside before anyone notices." Kian told him, brushing aside his thoughts. He reached up to the window and grasping, pulled something in front of the window to hide the fact that it had been used.

Kirin nodded and pushed the door of the cellar open, and began to climb the stairs; Kian following close behind. Even in the darkness of the building it was not too difficult to get around.

Once they had chosen where they would rest and had set up camp there, Kirin and Kian again went over the plans of what would take place this evening.

_Too soon...we are going in too soon, _Kian thought. _We are bound to be caught. Then I will be prisoner again… and Kirin with me._

The thought of being caught and returned to Sadir to stand trial again was far worse than any other death that Kian could think of.

5.

Nightfall. The trek through the back alleys of the ghetto felt like they had taken so long that Kian looked to the sky twice to see if the sun was beginning to ascend from the horizon; but it had not. Standing outside Friar's Keep, there was a sudden change in Kirin. Up until that point he had been nervous, looking over his shoulder periodically to check and make sure no one had followed them. Now, he held himself with confidence, and walked as if he was proud to wear the uniform; though Kian could still see that it the uniform bothered him slightly. Aside from the stiffness of his movements caused by the discomfort he felt; if it had not been for the fact that Kian knew who he was, he might have easily mistaken him for an Azadi soldier.

"I'll do all the talking. Some of the men might recognize your voice." Kirin murmured as they approached the door.

Kian nodded, stood up straight, and said nothing; watching Kirin as he spoke, through a tube, to the man inside. He could not hide a grin when he heard Kirin was altering his voice, making himself sound gruff, and slightly inebriated. To avoid attracting suspicion, he had to force a frown on his face as the doors of Friar's Keep were opened and they were allowed inside. Kian stood at attention as the little man at the desk, whom he recognized, stood and spoke directly to Kirin. He couldn't help but be relieved that it seemed the little man was ignoring him.

"Papers, please."

Kirin pulled the forged documents from a pouch attached to his belt. It had been difficult to obtain those papers. Roper Klacks, a wizard who worked in the ghetto, had been unwilling to cooperate with two men dressed in Azadi uniforms, and it wasn't until Kirin showed the mysterious burn pattern on his wrist that the obnoxious old man would do anything to help. Kian could only suppose that the burn mark on Kirin's arm had something to do with the rebellion, but did not feel comfortable asking him about it. On one hand, Kian could not blame the man for not wishing to cooperate…but after almost thirty minutes of arguing with him in hushed tones, Kian had become increasingly frustrated and Kirin had had to step in and use his powers of persuasion. Now… all Kian could do was hope that the wizard's papers were genuine looking enough to pass the test.

The little man glanced over every line of text before turning his snobbish nose up and waving them onward. The guard watching the door into the main part of Friar's Keep gave a gruff grunt of greeting before pushing the door open and letting them past. Once they were through, the door was shut behind them.

"That was almost too easy…" Kirin muttered. "I shall have to see that Klacks gets paid."

"Indeed. I would double what you might normally pay him."

"If this works…"

"It will work."

They spoke in hushed tones as they made their way up the stairs, showing the papers to the second guard at the half-way point and the other at the top. When they reached her cell, the guard unlocked the door and allowed them to enter.

"Get a move on." Kirin said to Saliman, and shoved her towards the door roughly.

Kirin had insisted that in order for it to succeed, they needed to treat Benrime as a prisoner until they were outside the Keep's walls. And so they were gruff with her, and hassled her as they made their way down the stairs. Kian was the only one who remained quiet; while Kirin continued his verbal assaults and Benrime snapped back. When they reached the main floor, she was put in irons to keep her from running away.

"Sign here, please."

Kirin leaned down to read the document that Kian already knew was a release form saying that the Keep was no longer responsible for Benrime Saliman, and confirming that she was released to their custody. He leaned over the papers and quickly scrawled what Kian could only guess would be a false name.

The little man smiled, his beady eyes glinting in the low light of the room.

"Have a good evening, gentleman."

With that, they exited the Keep. Kian's heart was pounding in his ears, and no doubt Kirin's was doing the same. So far, there mission had been a success. They had just stepped beyond the doors of the Keep when Kian's spirits fell. Encircling the entrance to Friar's Keep were four soldiers and Kirin's ex-patriot, Elias.

"Well well… look what we have here."

Instinctively, Kirin and Kian both pushed Benrime behind them. Although three of the soldiers would have to get close to hurt her because they carried swords, one of the men standing there was an archer, which was far more dangerous.

"Elias…" Kirin's voice was full of barely contained rage. Kian could not blame him…they were being betrayed by one of their own.

"Hello Kirin." Elias grinned. "The helmets… take them off."

Kirin and Kian both complied, tossing their helmets aside.

"You…bastard," Kirin muttered. "Tatya will see you hung for this."

"Difficult for her to do when she is not in Arcadia… isn't it, Kirin?"

_Arcadia? What did he mean by not in Arcadia?_ Kian wondered, and looked to Kirin for an explanation. But Kirin was not noticing anything else around him at the moment; he continued to glare at Elias with a hate that would no doubt have killed him more than once if it could have.

"That's no business of yours, Elias. You're a traitor to your land and your people." Kirin pulled his sword.

Elias looked at the soldiers, who seemed to be hesitating. "What are you waiting for? Kill them!"

Spurred into action, the three men with swords came running at them. Only the archer held back, arrow already out of the quiver and knocked, ready to fire once he had a clear shot of the enemy.

"Kian, you and Benrime! That way!" He motioned quickly with his head to the outcropping of large stones that had obviously been left there from a re-build that had been done to the Keep.

Kian nodded, and grabbing Benrime by the arm, pulled her with him. Once he had her safely behind the rocks, Kian continued to fight off two of the swordsmen, while Kirin tried to handle the other. Not wanting to kill his own, he had tried hard to incapacitate them without killing them, but the fight with the two was dragging on, and having suffered a few minor wounds, he began to realize the necessity. Gritting his teeth and saying a prayer for them, he killed them both. He would have to pray to the goddess for forgiveness later. Kirin had easily overtaken his attacker, and was now in a heated dance of blades with Elias. The archer had already tried a number of times to hit Kirin as the two clashed swords, but they had been misses.

Kian was making his way to the archer, darting arrows as he moved, when Elias spun Kirin so that his back was facing the archer. The man with the bow turned at the notice of this, took aim, and fired.

"Kirin!" Kian shouted.

Kirin gave a cry of surprise and pain when the arrow hit him in the shoulder, and he clutched at his shoulder in shock. Elias grinned and plunged his short sword through Kirin's abdomen.

"KIRIN NO!" Benrime shouted in surprise and despair.

The archer was just turning his arrows back on his other target as Kian threw a punch, which connected with the man's jaw and sent his head snapping back. The archer fell onto the ground and lay still.

Kian turned as Elias was coming at him, and pulled his sword. During several minutes of dodging and hacking, Kian realized that there was no way that Elias could have won against Kirin without treachery. The knowledge of what this man had done and was doing fueled the anger inside of him, and Kian fought harder and harder. Elias began to lose ground quickly, already tired from the previous fight, and it wasn't long before Elias was doing most of the blocking.

"Did you hear him squeal, Apostle? His blood will be on your hands too! As well as that innkeeper's, once I am done with you."

Kian let out a snarl of hatred, and as Elias moved to make an attack, turned his body slightly to miss the blade of his sword and then plunged his on sword upward into Elias's chest. Elias looked up at him in shock.

"You…"

Kian's expression was hard, and he twisted the sword once to the right with all his might. Elias let out something that sounded like a gurgle, and fell to his knees. The Apostle jerked the sword free from the man's body, and Elias fell face forward on the ground, dead.

As he turned to look to where Kirin fell, he could see Benrime leaning over him, murmuring something to him. He could run now. No one could stop him from escaping the imprisonment he had been facing with the rebels. Yet something stopped him, held him back. Instead of moving away from them, he walked to them, putting his sword away as he moved.

"How is he?"

"It's bad… I've wrapped it with some cloth I had with me…but we need to get him out of here….who…who are you?"

"That can wait. Come." Kian knelt and lifted Kirin up over his shoulder as gently as he could. Quickly, before any reinforcements could arrive, he and Benrime used cover of night and the back ways that Kirin had shown him to return to the Journeyman for their things, and then used the Elgwans to escape into the forests of Marcuria.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Notes: _Merry Christmas!! Oroborus' fourth chapter is finally complete. As you may have noticed, I'm bouncing in between Stark and Arcadia… and between Tatya and April/Kian. This is partially to make it in keeping with the way Dreamfall was designed/written. Please notify me if you see any errors. As always I apologize for how long it takes me to write these chapters. –NoodleNeko_

IV. FURTHER UNTO THE BRINK

1.

"You alright?"

Warren's concerned voice broke through the noise of concerns running like a freight train through her mind. Noticing that the taxi had stopped, she looked out the taxi window, and gazed upon the outside of a grungy old apartment building in what must have been the Metro City.

"Hm?"

"Something you want to talk about?"

"Not really."

Tatya opened the taxi door and began to step out; only Warren's hand grasping her upper arm stopped her. She turned back to look at him, eyes narrowing as if expecting a confrontation. He was quicker than she had expected. Training from the streets, she mused.

"You had better let me go."

The expression on her face and the tone in her voice were enough to get Warren to release her. As she left the vehicle and slammed the door, Warren was coming around to her side, to join her on the sidewalk. She glared him full of holes as he approached.

"Look… I'm sorry I grabbed you… but if I'm going to introduce you I have to know you aren't going to cause trouble….I have to know that you're on the level."

"You brought me all the way here and now you're telling me this?"

She was tired, hungry… annoyed. So far, not much had gone as planned; and it did nothing for her disposition. Almost as if to show him how annoyed she was, she gave the bag she had slung over her shoulder a jerk as it tried to slide, and turned to head into the building.

He pursued her, but didn't try to stop her physically. "Father Raul is a good honest man, one of the few left in this city, maybe the world. I don't want to be responsible for bringing the Eye to his door."

She stopped and glanced over her shoulder at him. "Telling you I'm not with the Eye won't help the situation, so why ask me? You and I both know if I was with them I could just lie and tell you I wasn't; and you would have no way of knowing if you could trust me. You carry a weapon on your person, do you not?"

Warren blinked at her in surprise, and reached quickly to his hip as if to check and see if the gun was still there. He relaxed visibly when his hand grasped it. Tatya offered an amused grin.

"How did you…"

"I saw it when you went to pay the cab driver. I'm not going to try and talk you into believing I'm not with the Eye. That would be a waste of time. However, I will say this. What are the chances I could hurt you before you shoot me? As long as you have that gun, you have the upper hand, do you not?" She turned and walked up the cement steps, pulling the rickety door to the apartment building open. "So stop worrying and lead the way."

He chuckled softly and shook his head. "You are one tough broad, you know that?"

"Tough: no. Stubborn: yes. And hungry. Now go."

2.

The inside of the apartment building was even more demolished then the outside, covered in dirt and water stains, tagged with gang symbols and full of obvious wall-patch jobs that had been done half-hazard to hide the disrepair. The place smelled of mildew and human filth; which caused Tatya to wrinkle her nose slightly in distaste. People actually lived here? Could it be that there were people in Stark worse off than those in Arcadia? The thought made her think of home which made it even harder to remove the mission's importance from her mind. Every stair she climbed in that place reminded her of the harm that was being caused to both worlds. The Eye and the Azadi… they were not too dissimilar in a lot of ways. They both longed for power; both toyed with the hearts and minds of the people to get it. Many were suffering because of their existence.

"How can people live like this?" Tatya muttered the words to herself.

Warren obviously heard them, and shook his head, also frowning. "I'm not sure. Really, I'm not even sure how I survived life like this. You just… do what you can. Even if it means turning to something illegal to make ends meet."

"Sounds like the voice of experience talking."

"I'm not proud of everything I did… but I was a kid. I was just trying to survive in a world that didn't want me."

Tatya gave a gruff grunt of displeasure. "There are other ways to survive."

She couldn't see his face, but she knew there was a smirk on it. "You aren't judging me, are you? Considering the temper I've seen from you so far, I'm sure you're capable of much more than I was as a kid."

"True. Petty theft and grand larceny are small potatoes were I'm concerned." She smirked herself and began to climb a ladder that had been used to replace the stairs. "No one's perfect. I would certainly not make that claim."

He gave a wry chuckle. "Tough and cynical. The longer we're together the more I like you."

"Don't grow too attached. I don't think there's a doctor that would know how to remove you."

"Ouch. Be still my heart."

Tatya couldn't hold back a chuckle, and glanced over her shoulder and down at him from the upper part of the ladder.

When they reached the door that Warren indicated was 'the one', he slid in front of Tatya to knock. It took several moments before an answer came, and then it was only a soft mumble.

"Who's there?"

"It's Warren."

There was the sound of the lock disengaging and the door slowly slid open a crack to reveal a haggard old face, tanned and wrinkled by the years and the elements. The eyes were the most notable feature in the tired, weathered face. They gleamed with hidden intelligence, and belied the obviousness of the man's age. Behind those wire-framed glasses and the aged visage was a man who knew more than he let on.

"Warren… it's very late. Is something wrong?"

"It's alright, Father. Nothing's wrong, I just brought someone to talk to you."

The old man nodded, and swung the door wide for the two of them to enter. As Tatya crossed the threshold, she felt as if she was crossing into another world. The inside of the man's home was a contradiction when compared to the dingy darkness of the outside.

"You've done wonders for this place. It's hard to believe we are in the same building." Tatya said as she looked about at the warm wool rugs, overstuffed comfortable furniture, and plant-life.

"Father Raul moved here just after the collapse ended, when things began to settle down. The Eye was beginning to ask him questions and here's where felt more comfortable."

"It's quite natural that I made the place more hospitable for myself." The old man explained. "Please, have a seat." He indicated to the couch as he took a seat in an oversized chair.

Tatya nodded in agreement with what he said, and took a seat on the edge of the couch. "Forgive the intrusion, Father. I am in need of some very important information."

"Information…?" Father Raul looked to Warren and raised an eyebrow. "I gather this is not the normal visit. Otherwise you wouldn't look so serious." He eyed Tatya. "What information was it that you needed?"

"I need what you know on the Church of Voltec, the Eye, and April Ryan. I'd also like to know what you might have heard about Zoe Castillo."

Father Raul's expression went from guarded, to surprised. "Why do you want to know about all that? And how do you know about the Church of Voltec… no one has mentioned them in the last ten years."

Tatya nodded in understanding. "I know it seems strange that I'm asking all this now…after so much time has passed. I'm also aware you can't completely trust that I'm not a member of the Eye trying to drill you to find out just how much information you know. I won't even bother to assert my innocence in that regard. I will only insist that I need this information, and that each moment we spend beating around the bush may only cost more time and possibly more lives as well."

"I still don't understand why it is you wish to know all this… and why April's name is resurfacing after all this time. She disappeared after the death of Burns Flipper, the man I sent her to in order to retrieve vital papers she needed. Her mission was an important one, which is why I did not attempt to talk her out of it. I knew it would be treacherous… so did Cortez…but there was nothing we could—"

Tatya blinked and eyed him warily. "What was April's mission?"

"To protect the balance."

Warren's own expression became confused. "Balance… what are you talking abou—"

Tatya leaned forward in her seat and her eyes were intent upon the priest. "You were a Sentinel Minstrum. I should have known."

It was time for Father Raul to be surprised, and Warren's expression was even more confused, as he vied for attention and continued to pop off questions in the background, Tatya and the priest stared at each other for a moment.

"You're from Arcadia."

"Not originally. I have the gift as well, like April did."

"Wait wait wait… what the hell is going on here?" Warren asked.

Tatya sighed and eyed Warren. "You will think we are crazy, but since I have dragged you into this, you have a right to know the truth. Any information you hear now will risk your very life if you start spouting it to others. I do not tell you to keep your mouth shut, I only warn you that mouthing off about things you know little about will be the death of you, and will also put many other lives in danger. This existence, this place of technology, is referred to by the name Stark. Stark and Arcadia are sister-worlds…once one world but split into two in order to protect the existence of those who lived there. When the worlds of technology and magic were one, it nearly destroyed them…and so they were separated, and their order… the 'balance' was watched over by one they called a guardian in a third world created separately in order for the guardian to do his work undetected."

"In English?" Warren said, looking even more confused.

"You live in Stark, Warren. A world of technology; one of two separate parts. Think of them as dimensions. The other is Arcadia… a world stuck in the arcane past, but also possessing powerful magic. I know it seems crazy, Warren… but she's telling the truth. And I'm guessing that the fact that she knows so much about the Church of Voltec either means that she's involved… or she's been in contact with April."

"A little of both- actually." Tatya ran a hand through her hair. "April Ryan is trapped in Arcadia with no way of getting back here…her powers are not working and we aren't sure why, but that is a story for another time."

Warren listened intently, drawing everything in and by the look on his face, not making any assumptions or drawing conclusions just yet. Father Raul looked less tired, and more alive than the husk of the man who had opened the door.

"So why are you here? Only to gather information?"

"What do you know about Zoe Castillo?"

"Very little other than what I heard over the feed. She was supposedly into some sort of twisted plot to over-throw the current government when she unexplainably went into a coma."

Tatya harrumphed and shook her head. "Lies."

"I figured as much, which is why I didn't put much stock in their words. Organizations like Watti Corp and The Eye are no different from the Church of Voltec… they use lies to turn the people against one another. Deceit is well known to their kind…"

_They may be one and the same…_

Tatya kept that thought to herself. It would have done Father Raul and Warren no good to hear that conspiracy theory. All those who had begun to make that assumption had had their lives quickly suppressed. It was fairly certain that at least one of the organizations had ties to the Church of Voltec and through them to the Vanguard. There was no doubt in Tatya's mind about that.

"Zoe Castillo was investigating the disappearance of her good friend Reza Temiz, and information led her to Watti Corp. Now she's in a coma, and no one is sure how it was started and whether or not she'll ever come out of it."

Father Raul shook his head. "No doubt Watti Corp is behind it. What is it you want to know…if I can help, I shall do what I can. After all, that's part of my job as a Minstrum… to help."

"What do you know about the Church of Voltec?"

"As far as anyone knows, they were extinguished after the disappearance of April Ryan and the mysterious disappearance of their leader, Joseph McAllen and his second in command, Gordon Halloway."

"Gordon Halloway became the new guardian, so it's no wonder he disappeared. What about the Eye?"

"They control everything now… the way people live… where people go and what they think. They are worse than the Church of Voltec and the Vanguard combined."

Tatya shook her head. "I figured very little would be known about them…and April?"

"Last time I saw her was when she came to see me about Cortez. He had been missing and she was worried. That was the last I heard from her."

She sighed and looked to Warren. "You had contact with her…did she tell you anything? Give you any information. You said she cleared your record… what record?"

"The Church of Voltec had information on me about petty crimes that I'd committed as a kid… and they also had information about my sister. April expunged my record and got me the information I needed to locate my sister in exchange for information about Burns."

"Where did she get this information?"

"…the archive at the old police station in Metro West." Warren seemed to be thinking hard for a moment before he snapped his fingers. "We might still be able to tap into the archive…though the station is abandoned; there is still the back up generators. Maybe we could even tap into the main Eye systems if we're careful… you know anything about computers?"

"I think I could manage. I'll need directions to get to this police station."

"Uh-uh. You aren't going alone. I owe April a favor. Considering how much mentioning of her there's been…she's obviously involved with this some how. I'm going."

"I suppose there is no point in arguing with you. I could knock you unconscious, but that wouldn't do me any good."

All he did was grin.

2.

Another run down section of town, another darkened stained hallway. This place had turned from the rat-infested hole it had been when she had been there last… to one that even the rats would not inhabit. Finding the police station had surprisingly been quite easy…it was still fairly well marked for a building that hadn't been used since the collapse. Unlike the Hope Street Cathedral, it was hard for Tatya to see the glory that had once been in this large concrete building; most likely because there had been no glory to it. The architecture was crude, the building more imposing than the comparative gracefulness of the skeletal arches that made up the cathedral's destroyed roof. As they made there way into the depths of the dilapidated monstrosity, both Warren and Tatya remained silent, taking in the atmosphere and trying not to be disturbed by it. It wasn't until they reached the door of the archive room that anyone spoke.

"You sure you want to do this? If the Eye finds out you are aiding me in an investigation against them… and who I work for… the record that April expunged will be re-investigated. If they catch you, they will imprison you; if not kill you. Their main focus will be keeping you quiet. You'll become a fugitive again."

"I've come this far. And I'm not all about watching my own neck like I used to be. As I said, I owe April. If it hadn't been for her I wouldn't have what I have now."

"Yet you are willing to give it all up. I'm guessing this doesn't just have to do with paying April back. What did the Eye do to you?"

Warren quirked an eyebrow at her and shrugged. "What makes you think I have something against the Eye?"

"You've built a life for yourself now." Tatya pulled a lock picking set from her pocket and began fidgeting with the slide card locking mechanism to the right of the door. "Most people wouldn't be stupid to come from nothing, and then sacrifice it all to return a favor they aren't even sure is needed."

He remained silent for a moment, and though she couldn't see his face, she knew he was mulling over what she said, trying to decide what he should say, whether he should lie or tell the truth.

"The Eye's been looking for Father Raul for a while. They came to me a while back asking questions about him… that's when I started carrying the gun. I don't know what they know about him, but right now it's not obviously enough to start an all-out manhunt for him. It might not always be that way. If it weren't for Father Raul and people like April, I wouldn't have a life. Father Raul is the reason April even came to me in the first place. So I'm protective of him. I don't want to see anything bad happen to him."

"Ah." The lock clicked and fizzled, and the door popped open slightly and then stuck. "What is it with government facilities and cheap technology…" Tatya muttered as she pulled and pushed on the door until she was able to create enough of an opening to slide through.

Tatya entered the small, half ovular room and looked about.

_This technology looks more than ten years old. So much for government funding keeping things up-to-date. This should be easy._

"We should be fine on back up power… this system is designed to run on the minimum...because of the shortages that Metro City had been experiencing. Though that's no surprise, considering the amount of people within a ten block radius. People were packed in like sardines. It wouldn't surprise me if things were the same even though most of the city was relocated."

"You know a lot about this place for someone who isn't from here."

"It's a long story." She plopped down into a seat and started punching keys. "This computer is pass-worded, but I'm pretty sure I can find a back door."

"Back door?"

"Another route into the system- a way around the password. It shouldn't take long."

"You really DO know what you're doing."

Tatya didn't respond; she was far too focused with the computer. Fingers moving across the keys with few pauses, she continued to type in code after code, line after line of text that was most likely meaningless to anyone else who would take a look at it. Finally, she hit the enter key, and sighed in relief.

"We're in."

"What exactly are we looking for?"

"Another back door…" She began typing again, but this time she wasn't as focused on the keys as she was before. "…into the Eye's main systems. I'm sure these computers are tied in together, and that the Eye probably had them connected when the Church of Voltec was dissolved…most likely just so that it was easy to transfer files from one system to the other…if I can just find the…ah. There we go."

The screen changed, and a slightly fuzzy version of the main system window appeared. Tatya's hands began flying over the keyboard again.

"What kind of information are we trying to get?"

"Anything we can that would indicate a tie in between the Eye and Zoe, other than what is being spouted on the news feeds."

"This will take some time. Should I order lunch?" His voice was teasing.

Tatya grinned with the corner of her mouth at him and looked back to the computer. "I'm not sure I want to eat at the place that would be willing to deliver to this neighborhood…" She paused and her face grew serious.

"What? Find something?"

Tatya chewed the edge of her lower lip and began typing again, pulling up a few diagrams. Warren eyed the computer curiously and kept glancing back and forth between the screen and Tatya's face.

"How much crime do you hear about on the feed lately?"

"Not much; not that that means anything…why?"

"I found a document indicating the entrance of a new prisoner into the jails at the new police headquarters in Metro Circle." She tapped the screen with a fingernail.

"Yeah? That's nothing new…I'm sure it's probably on some dumb charge. Why is that relevant?"

"For several reasons. One… the location of the new police headquarters is diagrammed out as the old office of Joseph McAllen." Again she tapped the screen. "That building."

"No way…"

She nodded. "The Eye took over the old office of the Church of Voltec's leader. Two, the prisoner's name is left off of the dossier containing the prisoner's personal information, all we know is he's male. The fact that the Eye would do that means it's someone they don't want other people knowing exists. And three…if it were a dumb charge, it would have been reported on the news and there would be more information on it, free publicity for the news feeds. The Eye's covering something up…" Tatya's eyes narrowed. "…and I intend to find out what."

Warren opened his mouth to say something, but she shook her head and stopped him with the raise of her hand. She knew he intended to volunteer to help her, but she wouldn't allow it. Going into a police station run by the Eye was going to be extremely dangerous.

"Not this time. I know you want to help, but the best thing for you to do…is to go back to Father Raul. Look after him, and wait for news from me."

"I have no way to get in touch with you if something happens."

She sighed and shook her head. "It's better that you don't have a way to get in touch with me. The Eye no doubt listens on the mobile frequencies and I don't want them to have any idea what I'm up to, atleast not until I'm in and OUT of that building."

Warren hesitated for a moment, trying to come up with something that could change her mind or atleast stall her. "Alright… but here." He pulled a pocket knife from his pocket and offered it to her. "I've had this since I was a kid. Maybe it'll come in handy."

"Thanks." Tatya eyed it and took note of the sharp blade, and something even more useful, a magnetic screwdriver.

"Hey… I know you really want to put the screws to the Eye and all…but if it gets dangerous…get the hell out of there. April wouldn't want you getting killed over this, and neither would I." He grinned. "Especially since we've barely gotten to know each other."

Tatya chuckled and shook her head. "I can't promise anything…and lay off the charm, will you? My ego is big enough as it is."

3.

From the blueprints it was obvious that the place had been gutted and re-built, and would not be as easy to get into as the old had. Sneaking would do nothing, the security measures – spiders and dozens of guards – took care of that. Tatya knew from the beginning that she would be forced to use good old fashion acting. Buying the gun wasn't difficult…the Chinese man back in Newport was happy to sell her one. She was amused at his confusion when she told him she needed no ammunition even though he was offering it at a discount.

It was the most ludicrous scenario she had ever thought up… walking into a police station through their weapon detectors with an un-armed gun under her jacket. However, it was just dumb enough that it would work. They would detain her for questioning, and in doing so, they would give her access to the inside of the building, which is what she really wanted.

Not wanting the Eye to get their hands on the papers she had, she hid it in the best place she could think of, and relied on her memory for locations of the prisoner's cell and other such things.

_I would say 'I hope this works'…but we're dealing with police…they aren't paid to think ahead. They're paid to react._

She had to hide a grin as she walked up the front steps and into the building, approaching the six foot tall metal cylinders on either side of the entrance. As she stepped through them, she clutched the gun beneath her coat.

An automatic wailing siren began to scream in her ear, and police officers that had been standing around looked about in surprise and then rushed toward her to tackle her to the ground. To add to the effect, Tatya jerked the weapon from beneath her coat and aimed it at random just before they brought her down. They never even bothered to check the gun's chamber.

_The idiots fell for it._

Several hours of detainment later, after having pounded her with question after question and roughing her up a little, she was jerked from her chair, shoved into a pair of fancy computer-aided handcuffs, and finally brought to her destination; a cell in the wing the new prisoner was kept. By her own guess from the information she had found through the archive computer, every cell was allowed two occupants only, and there was only one empty bed left… if she was right… she would end up where she wanted to be.

Giving her a rough shove, the police pushed the button that sealed the door behind her, and she leaned against the wall, and chuckled. The chuckle broke out into a soft laugh and she doubled over for a minute. Never had she seen a plan so stupid work so well.

"You seem oddly content for someone who has just been thrown in prison."

The soft voice with a strange intonation sounded from a darkened corner of the room. Tatya cleared her throat and looked up. "Well, it really depends on your attitude… and your intentions. If you didn't want to be thrown into prison, sure… my reaction is odd… but…"

"If you wanted to…then I suppose it's feasible. However, why would you want to?"

Another chuckle escaped her and she ran a hand through her hair, flopping down onto a nearby cot. "That…would be telling." She eyed him through the dark, his features slowly coming into focus in the darkened room. A thin, but fairly handsome face, blond hair, more than a five o'clock shadow beginning to show on his chin, a bit thin for Tatya's idea of 'a nice body', but not unattractive. This wasn't Reza Temiz…so who was it?

"So what did you do?"

The man leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees and rubbed his face with his hands. "Nothing."

"Odd statement for a man in prison; do you mean you are innocent of the crime accused… or that they just threw you in here for the fun of it?"

He sighed. "I mean what I said. I have done nothing."

She let out a soft sound that might have been an amused snort. "If you say so. I'm Annika. What's your name?"

"Damien Cavanaugh."

Tatya blinked, and then a broad grin crossed her face. _I'll be damned…the other man I've been trying to find, and the idiots brought me right to him. I love this place._

"…Zoe's friend." She murmured; struggling to get out of her jacket until she realized the handcuffs stopped her from removing it completely. Letting out a frustrated curse, she kicked the small table next to the cot, upsetting a glass of water. It crashed to the floor, causing Damien to flinch.

He looked down at the glass and then up at her in shock. "You… know Zoe?"

"Can't say I do, but I have seen her."

"How is she? Is she alright?"

She could have been vague, told him that she was fine, but it would have been a lie. And although often-times lies worked in her favor, now wasn't going to be one of those times.

"She's in a coma."

The man was visibly distressed by this; began wringing his hands, and then finally clasped them to his face. Tatya watched this action, which seemed difficult with his own hands bound in cuffs. "What have I done…?"

"Don't. Blaming yourself for this will only cause more problems. We both know who is really behind all this."

"How do you know?"

"I've been on the case. I was researching what she was into directly before her going into a coma. Maybe you can provide the answers to my questions."

"And they caught you?" He was becoming increasingly confused by the tone in his voice.

"Hah...no. I let myself get thrown in here for the amusement, and to find someone. I'm a little surprised to find you in his place. I've been looking for you."

"You want information."

"You're a smart man. Yes, I want to know what you and Zoe were into before Zoe went into a coma and you got thrown in here."

"You mean you don't know the story? I suppose I better start from the beginning…"

"That would be good."

Damien cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. "I worked for Watti Corp, on a new product that was recently introduced to the market…the Dreamer. It was going to be a new top of the line product that was going to make Watti Corp's sales soar through the roof….but there's a flaw. Dreamcore is designed to monitor dreams… not just assist in creating them. Basically… the Eye…and Watti Corp could monitor everything a person thought… felt….and saw… not only during the dream… but their memories. It gives corporations like Watti Corp and super powers like the Eye full control over anyone who hooks up to a dreamer. My partner and I found out this… and tried to go to the Hand, to get this information out to the public without jeopardizing our clearances. Jericho was my contact…our contact. When Jericho went missing, I figured something had happened to him… and then my partner was found dead in Jericho's apartment. Rumors were flying around, and I was on my own. When Zoe showed up, I was beginning to give up hope that we would find a way to stop the dreamer from being sold. Zoe told me about being hooked up to the dreamer, what she saw, and agreed to help stop it. Dreamcore was unstable, and so she and I worked together and she was able to install a worm inside Dreamcore for me to monitor the information as it came through. She was nearly caught, and I brought her here. The last time I saw her, she insisted I hook her up to a dreamer one more time…I didn't want to…but….and I promised to stay by her side…but I couldn't. I tried to return before she awoke, but by the time I got back to my apartment she was gone…and soon after Eye soldiers busted in and took me in. Oh god…what have I done. I should never have let her hook up to the dreamer again."

"If she had gone into a coma there, she would still have been there when you got back. You didn't do this to her…someone else did. I intend to find out whom… and how."

"Why? To what end?"

She looked him directly in the eyes. "Someone needs to know the truth. Everyone needs to know the truth. Corporations like Watti Corp and the Eye get their kicks from using their power against those who cannot fight them. Someone needs to fight back, to show them they are not completely in control."

"Zoe tried to do that, and it put her in a coma."

"I'm not Zoe. I've seen what people like this can do." She shook her head. "But right now that is unimportant. Right now it's important to get you out of here."

"How?" He raised his arms, brandishing the metal cuffs as if Tatya had not noticed them already. "These are controlled by remote…even an expert lock-pick couldn't pick these."

"One defeat and suddenly you are all doom and gloom. Lucky one of us has a plan or we would be screwed." She slid forward so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed she was on, and leaned forward to pull off one of her boots. Once the boot had come free of her foot, she gently shook it over the bed until something fell out with a soft thunk. Damien watched with interest as she began flipping things open and closed on what appeared to be a pocket knife, but seemed to be a little handier than that. Pulling one tool out, she took it in her teeth and began to work at her own cuffs with the end of the metal screwdriver.

"Good thing that damned weapon scanner didn't de-magnetize this thing." The cuffs whined as she applied the magnet to the part controlled by the remote.

"How did you manage to sneak that in?"

"One thing you learn after dealing with these police for a while…once they've found an incriminating weapon… they tend to stop searching for anything else."

There was a sound, of small shifting metal parts, and then a click as the cuffs released.

"How did you do that?"

"You're telling me you work with computers but don't know what a magnet will do? Come on." She rolled her eyes, pulled the cuffs off, rubbed her wrists, and then moved over to him quickly and began to work at his handcuffs the same way.

"You've done this before."

"Of course. I like breaking out of prison, really ticks off the bad guys. In my spare time I sing jail-bird songs and bang a cup up against the metal bars…when these cells have bars." She smirked as the cuffs clicked open.

"Sarcasm. You're right… you aren't Zoe."

"Never made that claim, did I. In fact, I believe I stated the opposite. Now we have to figure out a way to get them to open that damned door."

"The magnet won't work on that one. Lock opening mechanism is on the outside."

Tatya grinned at him slightly in the dark. "Sounds like I'm not the only one who's broken out before. No wonder they moved you here, I bet you were one heck of a prisoner at the other one."

He blinked. "How did you…"

She shook her head. "No time. We need to create some sort of scheme to gain their attention…"

"A medical alert might work."

"Fake an illness? Might work… it would have to be something serious enough to make them rush to get the door open. How good are you at acting?"

"Not very."

"Seizure would work…wait…" She pulled something from her pocket, a small packet of fizzy mints. "These could come in handy."

"I can't believe we're going to try this."

"Try? We're going to succeed."

"Why are you so confident this will work?"

"It has to."

He shook his head. "You aren't making any sense."

She eyed him, her jaw tensing. "I made a promise to someone. I intend to keep it."

4.

"HELP! Guards!! Guards!!"

The sounds of footsteps could be heard rushing in the direction of the noise, and it wasn't long before a thump could be heard on the metal door of the cell.

"Shut up in there!"

"HELP! Something's wrong with her!"

Cursing could be heard from the other side of the door, and then the door's electronic lock beeped and the door slid open.

Damien could only wonder what went through the guard's mind when he saw the woman lying on the ground with her head towards the door, convulsing, with foam dripping from her mouth, her eyes rolled so far back into her head that practically all you could see were the whites of her eyes.

"Help her! Don't just stand there!"

"What the hell happened here?!"

"I don't know…" Damien stammered the best he could. "She swallowed something and went down… and started shaking… do something…"

The guard moved forward and leaned over the woman, feeling her neck for a pulse as she went suddenly slack. It wasn't until he was close enough that he could smell the mint on her breath that her eyes opened and stared up into his. The guard gave a shocked noise, a cross between a grunt and a yelp of surprise, and moved to back up, but the woman was already moving. The lower half of her body, her legs and feet, came up off the ground and her feet seemed to get a firm hold on the man's head and neck. With one quick motion, a cracking sound came that almost made Damien nauseous to hear. The guard fell in a lumpy mass to the floor, and the woman was on her feet again.

"Who the hell ARE you?" Damien asked her.

She merely winked, and leaned over the no-doubt dead body, searching for keys to the corridor. After finding what she was looking for, she wiped her mouth on the back of her shirt sleeve and waved him to follow her.

"Come on, let's get out of here before his friends come looking for him."

She was hard to keep up with. This woman, whoever she really was, had been trained in combat and was obviously well versed in escape techniques. There were several times as they moved from corridor to corridor, that he had nearly lost her. So when she came to a sudden stop at the entrance to another corridor, Damien was so surprised that he ended up slamming right into her.

"What is it?" He asked, not bothering to apologize. If there was one thing he had figured out about her in the moments he had known her, it as that he would be wasting his breath apologizing to her, because of how she seemed to view pleasantries.

"Look with your eyes and you won't need my explanation." She murmured quietly.

So Damien did what she said, and tried to focus on what she might see that he didn't. He found it on his own, with no help from her at all. Close to the floor were small recesses in the wall, which could have only one purpose. Lasers.

"It's a security grid."

"We're lucky it isn't pressure sensitive flooring. They went cheap." She looked about and then pointed. "There… the access terminal is on the other side. I'll have to deactivate it."

"Wait…you're wrong."

She eyed him and raised a brow. "About?"

He pointed towards the floor. "This floor isn't just done with a safety grid…look closer. You're wrong…they do have a pressure sensitive floor… it doesn't start until two feet after the door. Look….that discolored block in the floor… that's a deactivation panel for a spider."

She groaned, obviously mentally abusing herself momentarily for missing it. "I can't cross the floor and just avoid the sensors." She looked up, and then pointed. "I'll have to go up."

"There might be another route."

"I've studied the diagrams backwards and forwards. Though they didn't indicate the safety countermeasures…I know enough about where we are to know this is the only safe route we have."

"So what do I do?"

"Wait here, and don't touch anything." She tentatively climbed onto a crate leaning against the wall and then grasped a hold of a suspended beam, shimmying until she had a good enough hold to move across.

Legs hanging down, she started across, moving slowly. Damien watched her, admiration hard to quell. She reminded him of Zoe. Determined…strong. She wasn't Zoe, though. Zoe wasn't cold. She cared about people… not just about a mission.

_She does care about people… she just doesn't show it well._

That much was true. There was something in the way that this woman had said Zoe's name that indicated to him that there was some sort of kinship, real or imagined, between the two of them. Damien had no doubt that to some extent; this kinship was the driving force and not just this woman's stubborn nature.

A curse issued from the woman brought him back to the present. Quickly, she had swung her legs up and wrapped them around the beam to hide herself from view better, and she was motioning for him to hide.

A spider had just turned the corner. Panic filled him, and he darted towards the crate to hide. In the process of doing this, he slipped and his foot crossed into the path of one of the security lasers. A deafening array of alarms immediately began to wail, and the corridor went pitch black, red lights at the ceiling blinking off and on, illuminating the corridor before putting it back in the dark. The spider started toward him, the flashing red light giving it an even more frightening approach.

With a growl of frustration, the woman dropped down on top of the spider, which immediately began trying to move around. With a hand that for a moment appeared to be claw-like, she ripped the top panel off of the mechanical creature and tore a large amount of wires and circuitry from inside it, causing it to fizzle and collapse.

From behind him, Damien heard the door swing open, and there was another spider, only a few feet from him.

"Let's go!" The woman practically hissed at him and started down the corridor, the panel forgotten now that the alarm was blaring in their ears.

Damien took off after her as fast as his legs would carry him. Turning the corner, he started up the stairs after her, breath heaving from exerting himself more than he was used to. As he turned another corner, he let out a sound of surprise as he slammed into her yet again. This time, she shoved him back against the wall as a blast of gun fire plugged into the wall across from the entryway, shattering the glass on an office entryway nearby. The woman looked behind them, knowing that the spider was no doubt behind him, and that quite a number of gunmen lurked ahead.

"You see that doorway."

"Yes…" He was hesitating. What could she be thinking?

"When I say go, you rush that door."

"Anyone can get in there…"

"There's another office door beyond that. We'll bar the way and it will buy us some time to come up with an alternate plan."

"We could be shot."

"What would you rather have… death by gunshot… or the slow painful one that would come from being caught? Spiders don't kill, they incapacitated. This means we'd be back in a prison cell. You really want that?"

"You do know how to put things into perspective."

"On the count of three..."

_This is insane. Even if we survive this…we'll be blocked off in an office with no where to go. We're putting ourselves in a trap._

Something inside him told him to trust her. He didn't know why… but she'd brought him this far without getting him killed.

"Alright."

Leaning back against the door, she could still here the gunshots and feel the wall reverberate with the power of their assault. Closing her eyes a moment, she took a deep breath and let it out. This had not turned out like she had planned, and though she was normally used to such things happening, she couldn't deny it angered and irritated her.

She could sense him; heard his heart beat frantically in his chest. He was scared, though he would hardly admit it. He had every reason to be frightened. Death waited for them outside the door she leaned against. She knew that hanging on the silence was a question he didn't want to ask. A 'what do we do now'? She groaned softly as a wave of pain rushed over her mind, and she clutched the side of her face.

"Hey…are you sick… were you hit?" There was concern in his voice; just as there had been concern in Gabriel's voice when she had nearly fallen into convulsions on the floor of the hospital.

The pain took control and blocked out all thought.

"Hey….hey!" His voice had gone from concerned to panicked. When she opened her eyes, she was on the floor, and he was standing over her, shaking her gently. "Are you alright??"

"How…how did I end up on the floor?"

"You blacked out on me."

Tatya could feel the thump at her back of force on the other side of the door. The barrage of bullets had ceased, and now they were attempting to force their way in.

He waited for her to respond to him, and when he seemed to realize she had nothing to say, stood and held out his hand to help her up. Her own shook badly as she held them up to look at them. Her knuckles were white, and their were bruise-like crescents pressed into her palm from where she had obviously tried to focus on another pain by digging her nails into the skin. Swallowing her pride, this once she took an offered hand and allowed him to pull her from the floor.

"You need to see a doctor. Has that happened before?"

"I don't want to talk about it… we need to get out of here."

"If you black out on me again, you won't be any good to me or yourself."

"We can talk about that later." She looked about, wincing slightly. She shook her head to clear the fog from her mind, and tried to find a route of escape; tried to recall where they were.

"_The window. Scaffold."_

She blinked. That voice again…Zoe? She looked to the window, and saw a small scaffold and a rope. Someone had been cleaning the outside of the windows recently, and had not been able to finish their work.

"There."

Damien turned around and looked out the window. "Where does it lead?"

"It reaches the main floor."

He nodded. "If you're sure you'll be alright."

"I'll be fine. But neither of us will be if we don't move."

Again, he nodded and move to the window, jerking up on it. "It's jammed." Looking around, he grasped a chair, and swung it at the window glass.

Tatya winced as the glass shattered, and watched as he carefully used the chair to brush away the sharp points of glass still left in the frame. Carefully, he began to climb out onto the scaffold, and Tatya moved to follow him. As she made it to the center of the room, the door creaked and a snap could be heard. It was already beginning to cave under pressure.

Moving quickly now, Tatya climbed out onto the scaffold and pointed to the rope. "Slide down that. It will be quicker."

"The scaffold is safer."

"The door will not hold them long. Go."

He seemed to see the futility in arguing with her, and he leapt to the rope, grabbing onto it and began to slide down. The timing could not have been better had they planned it that way. As he reached the ground, they breached the door, and rushed into the room. Tatya leapt to the rope herself and began to slide down as they climbed onto the scaffolding and began aiming their guns at her. When shooting at her did not seem to work, one of the offices climbed out onto the rope and began to descend. She wanted to be further down, but she had no other choice. Pulling the pocket knife, she cut the rope, and began to free-fall.

There was a shout of alarm from below, obviously Damien, as Tatya hurtled towards the ground. Closing her eyes, she allowed the animal within to take over, just for a moment, and the instincts of her body changed. Reaching out, she took hold of the gutter of another building, kicked off, swung around a light pole, and landed heavily on the ground as a cat might.

As she stood, Damien rushed over to her.

"My god… I thought..."

She looked up towards the window and the scaffold. The officers were already taking aim with their weapons, but none of them were firing. In the distance, she thought she heard a voice.

"Shoot them you idiots!"

Grasping Damien by the upper arm, she jerked him away as they began to fire once more. As they entered a doorway, Tatya could not disguise her smile of satisfaction. They were in the parking garage. Moving over to a nearby motorbike, she opened the panel and began snipping wires with the knife and reconnecting them in a different way.

"What are you doing?"

"Hot-wiring the bike…what else could I be doing?"

"Is there anything you can't do?"

"I can't bake cookies." The engine started up and she pulled on a helmet. "Hop on, unless you'd like to make nice with those boneheads who will undoubtedly be here any minute."

Damien hopped on the back of the bike, holding on to the handle behind him. "I can't promise I'll stay on. I've never ridden one of these things."

"Neither have I."

An alarmed expression crossed Damien's face as Tatya grinned, gunned the engine, and slid her face guard into place. The jolt of the bike as she kicked it into gear obviously scared the life out of him. Tatya found it amusing and ironic… how he could go up against the whole of Watti Corp and not be afraid… but be terrified of something as simple as a motor bike.

"Where are we going?" He shouted over the purr and whine of the bike.

"You'll see. Just sit tight."

5.

She could tell as she entered the room with Damien in tow that Warren and Father Raul had both been on edge since she had left Warren at the archive. As she sat on the couch, sipping a small mug of coffee, Warren paced the floor. Even Damien seemed to be made uncomfortable by this activity, and watched him walk back and forth. Tatya did her best to ignore it, rubbing gently at the lower portion of the back of her head, which still throbbed from the recent and re-occurring head pain she had been feeling of late.

"Warren, you will wear a hole in the floor. Please sit down." Father Raul said in response to his friend's actions, and turned his attention back to Tatya and Damien.

"You still haven't explained who he is… and what happened."

Tatya eyed Damien from the corner of her eye and set the mug aside. "This is Damien Cavanaugh. He has no connection to April Ryan, but he has an important connection to Zoe. This is one of the reasons I brought him along."

Damien's expression turned to shock too and he looked at Father Raul and Warren before looking at Tatya. "Wait… April Ryan?"

"Yes… I'm not surprised that Zoe told you about Arcadia, even if it was only just a little bit. April Ryan is the reason I came here."

"I thought it was Zoe." Damien sounded confused and slightly agitated.

"I would not have come to seek out Zoe if it had not been for April. She wanted to know what had happened to Zoe, and asked me to come."

"I can't believe this…this…you're trying to tell me that Arcadia… April Ryan… that everything Zoe told me is real?"

"It is, son. Whether you choose to accept it or not, it is." Father Raul said. "The story of Arcadia and Stark is a long and tedious one. Perhaps it would be best to explain that some other time. Just know that Annika here is one of the good guys. She is seeking out the truth of what happened to Zoe."

"It goes much deeper than that, Father. I'm not just seeking an answer for what happened to Zoe. I want to know who the puppeteer is. Someone has the people in Stark and Arcadia dancing to their tune, acting like perfect little marionettes… not questioning. I want to know who. I want to bring them down."

"Well, you've definitely gotten the Eye's attention. There's a big buzz about what happened at the station, and their calling you a criminal and a terrorist. They want you brought in for questioning. They're even offering a reward." Warren said, finally taking a seat after he had finished his pacing and lighting a cigarette to calm his nerves.

"That will be no help to them until they have a name."

"They already do. You're name has been plastered all over the news."

"That means someone inside their ranks must know who you are." Damien said. "But if you're from Arcadia… how is that possible?"

"Unless someone else from Arcadia is here? Another shifter?" Father Raul considered. "It is conceivable that if you and April share the gift, another may as well, and may be using it to benefit themselves. The Vanguard…"

"I've traveled here a lot. It could be anyone…and the Vanguard are no more. The Azadi run everything now…although I suppose there could be a connection though I'm not drawing any conclusions yet."

"The Azadi?"

"An army of Goddess-worshippers who are bent on seeing all of Arcadia 'purified'. They destroyed the Sentinel temple and built a tower in it's place. April helped form a band of Rebels to fight against their tyranny, but as of a year ago they have not been successful due to lack of numbers. And the people of Marcuria are either vying for the Azadi, or just to afraid of them to stand up for what's right."

"I had no idea things had progressed so."

"Of course, your link to that world was severed when April disappeared." She could have mentioned the death of Cortez, but knowing now how close the two men had been, she felt it better not to speak of it. _I'm changing. Before coming here, I could have cared less what I said to anyone and if it upset them…so many things are changing. I can't be sure if I like it or not._

"Anyway, the Azadi—"

Tatya's words were interrupted by the ring of Warren's mobile. The others in the room grew quiet as he answered.

"Hello?" A pause. "Wait wait…slow down…what?" Another pause. "Alright…hang tight, I'll be right there." Warren hung up and eyed them all worriedly. "I have to run. One of the boys has some information. I'll call if I learn anything important. I'll probably be a while so don't wait up." Warren waved, and rushed out the door with barely a look back.

"I don't imagine it's good news if he is in such a hurry." Father Raul stipulated. "While you were out a woman named Olivia called on your mobile. I took a message for you, figuring it would be important. She wants you to call her back at a number she left for you."

"Thank you, Father." Tatya grabbed her mobile from off the coffee table, punched in the number written on the piece of paper, and hit send. It was three rings before Olivia picked up.

"Hey sweety. I see you got my message."

Disregarding the word 'sweety', Tatya chewed her lip anxiously. "I'm going to put you on loud speaker." She pushed the button and then set the phone on the table. "I'm imagining it's important since you left me a different number rather than your work number."

"Yes…is it safe for me to talk like this? Who's listening?"

"Father Raul, a minister who used to run the Hope Cathedral… he's putting me up for now… and Damien Cavanaugh." It was a partial lie, but she didn't want to bring anyone else into the business of Arcadia just yet.

"Damien? You found him?"

"In a manner of speaking…we actually found each other."

"And the jail break was involved?"

"Yes. I went there thinking they might be holding the real Reza Temiz hostage there…since they left no name indicating who the prisoner was. To my surprise, I was dealing with Damien rather than Reza. Not that I'm too displeased, after all it does support a theory that I have going."

"Speaking of Reza…he stopped by yesterday while you were breaking into the prison…or out of it, I'm not sure which."

"How was he?"

"I don't know…I was out when he came by. He seemed very agitated that I was not there to let him in. I have footage of it that came from the security camera I installed outside my door. I'll send it to your mobile later. I just wanted to let you know I've seen him, and also wanted to make sure that you were alright."

"I'm fine. I'll be back in Casablanca by tomorrow. Try to keep a low profile until then. And do your best to stay away from Reza if you can."

"Certainly. I can close up shop for a few days. It won't hurt business too much."

"That's probably the best idea. I'll call when I reach the station. Stay safe."

"You too, swee—"

Tatya ended the call before she could finish that word, which she was beginning to dislike as much as she disliked being called a bitch, and sighed. "Well Warren was right. News has gotten around fast."

"I want to go with you…to Casablanca."

Father Raul shook his head. "Probably not the best idea, son. Annika here is a professional… let her take care of it. You've just broken free of prison; men from the Eye will no doubt be looking everywhere for you."

"No, Father. I'll take him with me. If I don't, he'll only follow me anyway. He wants to see Zoe." Tatya eyed Damien, who looked surprised that she knew what he wanted.

_You love her…it's only natural for you to want to be with her. You will have to understand something when the time comes, Damien Cavanaugh. Being in a coma…she is no danger to them, and so there is no danger to her. You…on the other hand, are a risk. And they will do anything to keep you from leaking all you know to the media…to anyone. Especially to me._

Damien mouthed the words 'thank you' to her as Father Raul turned to go into the kitchen to get another cup of coffee. Tatya merely nodded.

_How could someone have known it was me that did the jail break? It had to be someone that knew me…someone that…_

_That voice… I know that voice…but I can't put my finger on it._

The mystery voice from the scaffold continued to plague her, and so she slept fitfully, and in the end…not at all.

6.

Damien was silent on the trip to Casablanca, sitting next to her on the train. Though Tatya was happy with silence most of the time, she knew that the reason for his silence was not because he did not feel 'chatty'. It was because his thoughts were focused somewhere else, and she had a fairly good idea where. Looking over the video feed that Olivia had sent to her mobile, Tatya couldn't help but shake her head. There were much bigger problems to worry about than Damien's silence. Reza had practically bust down the door to Alien the Cat in order to get in, and his rage was obvious. This was definitely not the Reza that had been described to her. Through the use of the mobile's messaging system, she again warned Olivia again about staying away from Reza, and also told her that if she felt that the files she had were in danger, she should re-hide them, or even destroy them if needed.

She let out a sigh, and out of the corner of her eye, saw Damien's attention shift to her for the first time since they had boarded the train.

"More trouble?" He asked quietly.

As a response, Tatya showed him the mobile screen and played the video footage for him. Damien's frown deepened.

"If she had been there… and he had gotten in…"

"I'm aware." She clicked the mobile shut and shoved it deep in the pocket of her suit jacket. "Listen…there's something you need to know. Gabriel never had the chance to talk to Zoe before she went into a coma. He doesn't know about you. He doesn't know anything except for what I've told him, which is very little. There are obvious reasons for my keeping secrets from him, and I hope you will respect that. If you have to go in with me, introduce yourself as a friend of hers from out of town. Don't say anything about what has been going on."

"Won't the people at the hospital recognize us from the feed? Aren't we putting ourselves at risk going?"

"Are you saying you don't want to go?"

"No…no…I do. But I don't want to bring any danger to Zoe or her father."

Tatya sighed softly, pulling the mobile from her pocket again and flipping it open, pulling up various news feeds that had played in the last few days, showing each that she found. None of the feeds showed their faces.

"They're crazy…not stupid. Showing our faces on the feed would bring every vigilante in the city to our doorstep. They aren't counting on catching us immediately. They're hoping we'll slip up and use our names… and lead them to someone else."

"Who?"

"They want the ring leader in this most extraordinary adventure…my boss."

"…so they're trying to get us to contact him?"

"That and a whole lot more. Yes, they will want to get their hands on us eventually, but we are the pawns in a much bigger game of chess. Their first intent is to see if we lead them to their main target."

"Does your boss know this?"

"If he's seen the feed, he most certainly does."

"Why doesn't he contact you?"

Tatya stared out the window of the train for a moment, watching the landscape outside rushing by. "Because he knows I can handle this myself. He trusts me."

"So…we have to use fake names?"

The man caught on quick, and Tatya had the feeling that the bumbling routine she had seen from him at first when they were in the prison was merely an act. This man was smarter than he gave himself credit for.

"Yes; at least temporarily."

Damien nodded and turned to stare out of the window again, and that ended the conversation until the train began to slow. As they left the platform and headed for a taxi, Damien gently grasped her upper arm to stop her. Tatya turned to look at him.

"Morgan."

For a moment, Tatya did not understand what he was talking about, and then it clicked. He had chosen a name for himself already. "Morgan…it suits you."

"What about you?"

Tatya mulled it over a moment, staring out over the sandy landscape of Casablanca, and a soft smile crossed her countenance. "April. Just call me April."

Damien smiled a little and shook his head. "Clever. Alright, April."

The two of them climbed into a nearby taxi and drew in a breath of relief that they had made it this far without any phone calls from Father Raul, Warren, or Olivia.

"How long has she been in the coma?" Damien asked solemnly, wanting to know as much as possible about Zoe. It didn't take any training to see how he felt about her, how he agonized over her current situation.

"Atleast a year, atleast as much time as you've been in prison. I know you are worried about her, but know that atleast she is safe as she is. No one will harm her as long as she sleeps."

"I can't help it. As much as I'd like to… I can't turn my emotions off like a switch. I…"

"You love her."

Damien's mouth opened and then closed, and he stared out the window a moment before looking back to her. "Yes…I do. And until she's returned to me, I fear I'll only blame myself for what has become of her. She was my responsibility."

Eyeing him, seeing the pain in his eyes, she could recall another whose words were similar, who felt the same way about another woman… and the parallel between the twin worlds hit her like a ton of brick. There was so much in common between them, the Apostle and Damien…both had been working for the enemy, both turned against those they had worked for in order to fix the evil their 'employers' were committing, both had accidentally betrayed the one they found to be the most important in their life, and both of them agonized over their decisions.

"_Damien…"_

The pain took hold of her again, and she groaned and leaned against the door, causing Damien to turn around in alarm.

"Hey…don't do this to me now…"

"You…make it sound…as if I have a choice…" She let out another small cry and clutched her head in her hands.

Damien watched her anxiously until the pain subsided and she leaned against the seat of the taxi cab, allowing her body to relax.

"These spells seem to be getting worse."

"Tell me something I don't know." She rubbed her forehead.

"Do you know their origin?"

"I haven't had time to look into it. Let's…not talk about it anymore."

"You need to have a doctor look at you."

"No doctors. I won't submit to an examination. I have too much to do."

Damien sighed, and looked out the window. "We're here."

Tatya looked out the window to see they were pulling up in front of the hospital. As the taxi rolled to a stop, Tatya opened the door and stepped out, Damien following suit. Looking up at the hospital, she waited until Damien stood beside her before she started up the stairs and inside. Approaching the front desk, she was relieved to see a new woman on the front desk that seemed a great deal more pleasant.

"May I help you?"

"We're here to visit Zoe and Gabriel Castillo."

"Oh…" She looked at a log book before her and then back to them both, a bright smile on her face. "We were already notified there would be company. You can go right up."

"Thank you." Damien said.

Tatya turned and headed for the elevator, again Damien being left to follow. As the elevator doors slid shut, he let out a sigh.

"I…almost don't want to see her."

"You would be in deeper pain if you did not than if you did. Seeing her will help to assure you that she is alright."

"I…know." He looked up at the numbers on the elevator as they came to the right floor and the doors slid open. "May…I go first?"

"Be my guest." She motioned, following him out of the elevator and to room 201.

Again, Tatya was reminded of the significance of the number…and was able to make a subtle parallel between April and Zoe as well. It was almost frightening, how many lives could be connected by common threads.

Damien opened the door and stepped inside, and Tatya watched as Gabriel stood up in alarm and then visibly relaxed as she entered the room and shut the door.

"Gabriel, I would like you to meet a friend of Zoe's. Damien, this is Gabriel Castillo."

Damien's attention had been on Zoe, and he blinked and looked to Gabriel. "It's good to meet you. I'm…sorry we could not meet under better circumstances."

Gabriel looked to Tatya for an explanation, and Tatya merely shook her head gently, making it clear to him that they could discuss Damien's reason for being here another time. Tatya and Gabriel both watched as Damien approached Zoe's bedside, sat down in a chair near the bed, and gently reached out and took her hand. The expression on his face could not be hidden.

Gabriel watched this and then murmured softly to Tatya. "Who is this boy?"

"I'm…a friend of Zoe's." Damien answered, hearing his question. "She and I haven't been in touch for a while. I came as soon as I heard. I've been out of range for mobile or feed for a while so I hadn't heard the news." He squeezed Zoe's hand gently and barely controlled the expression of anguish that wanted to take over his face.

"She never told me about you."

Tatya sighed, and gently pulled Gabriel aside, allowing Damien some time alone with Zoe by pulling her father out onto the balcony. "I think we can both agree that Zoe did not tell anyone everything that was going on in her life. This boy cares a great deal and wants to help. What more reason do you need to be civil towards him?"

"They were more than just friends…that's the only reason she would keep things from me. If you know what he was to my daughter, you need to be candid with me, Miss Rush."

Tatya looked in to see Damien staring at Zoe's face and gently stroking her hair, murmuring something to her. She turned her gaze back to Gabriel.

"He loves her, Gabriel. See for yourself."

Mr. Castillo looked in through a glass pane in the balcony door and sighed softly. "I could see that the moment he walked in. He couldn't take his eyes off her. Can this kid be trusted?"

"I would bet my life on it, considering what he's tried to do to help so far. He refuses to leave my side. He wants to get her back."

Gabriel seemed to digest this information and then he nodded. "There's no guarantee on him dating my daughter if she wakes up."

"When. When she wakes up. Don't give up just yet, Gabriel. We WILL find a way."

Gabriel sighed, ran his hand through his salt and pepper hair, and nodded softly again. He was opening his mouth to reply when Tatya's mobile rang. With an irritated expression, she answered it.

"Yes?"

"You need to leave…now; three officers on their way in. Take the fire escape."

Tatya blinked, and it took her a moment to recognize who she was talking to. "Olivia…where are you?"

"Downstairs in one of the empty hospital rooms…I ducked in here when I saw them coming. I was just leaving by the stairs when you went up in the elevator. I was going to stick around outside and wait for you to come out… but when I saw them I figured I needed to duck and cover. Get out of there now. You have five minutes tops."

"We're on it." Tatya hung up, stepped inside hurriedly and motioned to Damien. "Time to run; we've got company downstairs coming up to intercept us, so we're going to have to take the back way."

Damien gave Zoe's hand one last squeeze, and moved quickly to the door. Tatya gave Gabriel an apologetic look.

"We weren't here."

"Understood."

Though she wondered if he really did understand, she didn't have time to worry about it. Following Damien out into the hall, they ducked into the stair well. Tatya pulled off her shoes so not to make any noise, and they moved as hurriedly down to the lower level as quietly as they could. At the exit, Tatya peeked out of the glass pane in the door to see Olivia beckoning to them. She let Damien go first, and then darted across the hall into the empty room herself, shutting and locking the door behind her.

"Good of you to call." Tatya said with a grin as they unlocked the door to the balcony, which spilled directly out into the hospital's small garden area and from there, off of the hospital's compound.

"Feeding someone like yourself to the wolves isn't my style. Let's get out of here before they start searching the rooms."

No one spoke until they were in a taxi headed in the opposite direction of the hospital. Olivia and Damien both sighed in relief.

Olivia eyed Damien with interest and then glanced at Tatya with a playful smile. "Do you not intend to introduce me to your friend?"

"Olivia… Damien Cavanaugh… Damien…Olivia."

"You're Damien Cavanaugh?" Olivia sounded mildly surprised.

Damien stared out the window and did not answer, obviously lost in thought again.

Clearing her throat, Olivia turned her attention back to Tatya. "Sweety, you keep warning me to be more careful but you're the one that keeps digging yourself into a bigger hole. Every file I tried to look up that might help you was flagged. Your friend Warren called me with the hopes that I would tell you to call him. He was quite upset that he couldn't get a hold of you. He says that it might be better that you and Damien get out of town…stick to some place that the officers do not want to be caught dead in. His 'boy' found out that the police had supposedly arrested Damien for illegal entry into a government facility but were holding him on charges they wouldn't indicate. They learned someone had hacked into the archive and have completely shut it down. Not to mention every feed is claiming you are both some sort of terrorist."

Tatya nodded. "I figured that would happen."

"What are you going to do now?"

"Drop you off at your shop, and hit the road."

"You're sure you do not want my help."

"Olivia, you have been more than a help already. Trust me, if we need you're help again, I will definitely call you."

The taxi slid to a stop in front of the exit where Olivia's shop would be, and she stepped out. "Be careful sweety. I may not know you as well as I know Zoe, but I still would prefer to see you again in one piece."

"I'll do what I can."

When they were alone in the taxi, Damien looked to her. "Where are we going?"

"To see Ghost."

"You claimed that was what the Eye and Watti Corp want. Why would you do such a thing?"

"He's withholding information."

"You'd risk his life because of that?"

Tatya didn't even bother to answer.

7.

When Tatya and Damien arrived at Ghost's office, the evidence that someone else had been there was obvious to even the most unobservant of people. She could already see that they had torn the place apart, and after a few moments of looking, found that all of Ghost's important files were gone. As she sorted through the mess on the floor, looking for something either helpful to their search for Ghost or incriminating to the one who did this, Damien looked out the window.

"Why is this man so important?"

Tatya didn't answer, but instead continued digging.

"Annika?" He looked over at her. "I asked a question."

"I heard you. Hate me if you like for choosing not to answer."

"Your secrets will get us both killed."

Tatya stopped and looked over at him from the corners of her eyes, glaring at him momentarily. "This man leads a very important force against corporations like Watti Corp."

Damien blinked, and then nodded. "The Hand That Bites."

"I never said the Hand."

"You don't have to. Jericho…Reza worked for the Hand, so the leader of the Hand is an answer that makes sense."

Tatya shook her head and kept her agitation to herself. "Think what you like. I'll neither confirm nor deny it. Hmm what's this?" She felt something underneath the chair, and pulled on it.

Damien watched with interest as she removed what appeared to be a computer disk from below the chair, hopped into the chair and inserted it into the computer on Ghost's desk. "Should you really be putting that in there without knowing what it is?"

"It was hidden and it has my name written on it. That's enough information for me." She hit a few keys and eyed the screen with interest. "I'll be damned…"

"What is it?" Damien approached and looked over her shoulder at the screen.

Tatya clicked something to move to the next document in the disk so that he couldn't read the previous one. "It's my dossier, the hard copy. There's also the information that Ghost had gathered on what had become of Zoe and you. He's been busy." She clicked over to another document, and chewed her lip.

Damien read what was on the screen out loud. "Annika, since you've received this disk no doubt you've found me gone and my office in shambles. Two nights they waited outside my office, I watched them from another building. When they went in on the third night, I knew it was time. Don't look for me. I have your mobile number and I will contact you if needed. There is a soft copy of your employee file sewn into the chair you no doubt now sit at. Burn it. If either the Eye or Watti Corp find it…you can only imagine what will happen—"

A screech of tires pulled Damien's attention away from finishing the note. He darted over to the window. "Two cars outside…we need to leave."

Tatya nodded, stood and ripped the chair open. Using the desk lighter and the trash can, she destroyed the file, slid the disk into a safe place deep in her pocket. "Follow me, I know a back way."

"You always do."

Tatya felt along the wall until she heard a click and a hidden door just behind a large fake tree slid open. Once they were both through, again she felt along the wall and the door slid shut. Tatya slid past Damien in the tight space and began to make her way quietly down the narrow walkway, and then out to a set of stairs. The stairs lead to an entrance at the back that had appeared to have been boarded up for years. Once they were far enough away from the office building and in a cab headed back to the train, it was Tatya who breathed a sigh of relief. Her fingers flew over the buttons on her mobile while Damien watched out the window for possible signs of being followed.

"Yeah?" Warren's voice came over the line after half a dozen rings.

"He's in the wind."

"Who? Annika, is that you?"

"Don't talk, just listen. Get the priest and get out of there. Find a safer place to hide out. I know you can locate my number now, but I suggest you don't call me; let me call you."

"Will you be okay? Do you need supplies?"

"No more questions, Warren. Do what needs to be done. I'll contact you when I know it's safe."

She turned off the phone before he could protest, and looked over to Damien. "We have to disappear. Luckily I know a place where we can go."

Damien looked to her. "They didn't detect us. We aren't being followed."

Had he heard what she had said at all? Or was he merely trying to change the subject.

_This is not going as planned. I was supposed to be back in Arcadia. I can only hope that April and the other's luck is going better than mine…_


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Notes: _Chapter 5 is finally here. Yaaaay! There were two really important points I needed to cover in this chapter. One was Kirin's injuries; the other was Kian's refusal to run when he had the chance. Other than that… this was all sorta just thrown together a bit so sorry if this isn't one of my better chapters. Please notify me if you see any errors. As always I apologize for how long it takes me to write these chapters. –NoodleNeko_

V. UNFAVORABLE MEMORY

1.

Three days had past. Three days and no response to treatment from Kirin…not once had he opened his eyes. Would he ever wake? Concerns like this plagued Kian, forcing him to walk the floor of his tent for hours, trying to think of the right thing to say… something to do…anything that might help. To upset to eat, the trays that were brought to him were left untouched.

_Walking back and forth here is not going to wake him up; bring him back from the brink of death. I have waited here long enough, held back for fear that one of them would be angry with my visits. No more. I cannot stay here and fear upsetting them. Kirin protected that woman and myself from death that day. He deserves my thanks, if not more._

But what could he do, and what would his 'thanks' accomplish, other than to make himself feel better?

_I have to do something. I cannot just wait here any longer._

Stepping out of the tent he winced as the bite of the chilled air from outside hit the skin of his face. Though snow on the ground had been a beautiful sight to him when he had first seen it, he had never become accustomed to Marcuria's biting cold winters, and the cool blast of air reminded him that winter would again be coming shortly. There were times he longed for Sadir's desert climate, the warmth and the humidity could sooth the ache in his bones; but his chances of seeing Sadir again outside of a prison were slim to none. If he attempted to go back there, he would be captured on sight.

Walking swiftly to the medical tent, Kian tried to ignore the glares that were placed at his back. April's men, the rebels, hated him. She had been right about several things during their arguments. Had it not been for her, the men would have attacked and no doubt killed him. This thought had angered him before, and at one time he would have accused them of being like Vamon and his followers—Murderers. Long ago he would have pulled his sword and cut them down one by one, calling them heretics and heathens. Now he knew differently. Though many of them still had blood on their hands and murder in their hearts, it was the path that the Azadi had chosen that had done this to them. Many of them were simple farmers…field hands…carpenters…potters…craftsman and hunters…these were not criminals. What bound them together was a desire to see their home free of tyranny.

But where do you draw the line between justified rebellion and murder? Both sides had suffered losses, not just one. Many of the men that had been sent here to fight the rebels were boys… young and with heads full of lies. They were shown no mercy…just as those simple folk here were shown none by the Azadi. Both sides had committed crimes against each other. The only difference was…the Azadi had started it.

This thought made Kian tighten his jaw.

_Damn them…they filled my head with lies and my heart with hate. No matter how much I could apologize, it will never be enough for her…nor her men. They will never accept my help even if I was willing to offer it. They would always wonder if I were not going to stab them in the back. Damn them for making me what I am…and damn me for being too blind to see it._

He allowed a soft, gruff growl to escape him and kicked a small crate as he entered the medical tent. Kian suddenly halted as he looked up and realized April was standing there. The look on her face squashed any confidence he had built up as he had marched through the bitter cold to this tent.

_That expression doesn't suit her…will I ever be able to see her smile?_

This thought surprised him. What was he doing thinking about her in such a capacity? What right had he to think of her as little more than a captor? At their current status they couldn't even be called colleagues, let alone friends.

_Why do I care so much about this woman? Is it merely her words that inspire me…or is it something else? Has my finding her familiar brought this out of me? Has the treatment I have received here gone to my head?_

She gave him no time to mentally answer these questions.

"I'm surprised to see you here. I was under the impression you intended to hide in your tent forever."

"Originally, I did intend to do just that."

"Oh? So you talked yourself out of it? Why?" She turned around and regarded him warily.

"This man saved an innocent woman. He deserves respect. Whether or not your men choose to accept my stay here, I am free to come and go as I please as long as I do not leave this camp. Therefore, there is nothing to stop me from paying my respects."

"You were worried they would be angry."

"Was it wrong to be so concerned? To your men, I am an unwelcome guest. No doubt they would love a shot at me if you had your back turned long enough—"

Her lips parted to speak an objection, but he pushed forward, not giving her the chance to cut in.

"—However, I realized that my concern for the welfare of this man was more important than my concerns about your men, at least for the moment. How is he?"

She sighed and slumped into a chair, rubbing her forehead wearily. "Still no sign of change… the doctor says he's hovering between life and death. He's fighting, but he's not putting full effort into it."

"He will make it."

She looked up at him, eyeing him with guarded curiosity. "What exactly happened out there? Benrime has been resting, so I haven't received the full story. Enlighten me."

Kian nodded, moved to a comfortable spot in a chair at the end of the cot where Kirin lay.

"We were ambushed. It was obviously a trap set by Elias. Kirin and I held them off as best we could, while we kept Benrime out of sight and range of the archer. Elias and Kirin fought…Elias… cheated. That is how Kirin ended up as he was."

She frowned and seemed to digest this information in silence.

_I have to tell her something… she has to see that although I do not openly desire conflict with those of my people… I do not intend to betray her. She needs to see that I can be trusted._

"I…feel the need to be honest."

Looking up at him again, she quirked a brow. "Oh?" There was a wary tone to her voice.

"My original intent when I left with Kirin to find Saliman was not to help…I intended to break away and disappear."

The lack of shock on April's face loaded the guilt onto his shoulders. She had already assumed he would plan such a thing.

"What changed your mind?"

"I don't exactly know. The situation presented itself… the plight of your man here… and Saliman… seemed more important."

"Are you saying you are changing your mind about helping us?" The sound of disbelief in her voice could have cut like a knife.

"Not… exactly. I cannot openly plot to kill my own people…however; I intend to protect those who mean to do well."

"So you're going to help those who you think deserve it…and just pray that it works itself out?"

"…that is one way to put it. Is that so wrong?"

Again, she seemed to become lost in thought, and then she shrugged. "You have enough of a conscience that you couldn't leave Kirin lying there to die. You had enough courage to walk through a camp full of people who would like to skin you alive merely to check on someone who needed aid. That is enough to satisfy me…for now."

_She will never give up. She will always push for my complete and total loyalty. It is not something I can promise her… but I will do what I can to make up for the mistakes of my people. Though I have no power in Sadir with the Six, I have power enough to protect those who could be harmed by what the Azadi has planned. I will not plot to kill my own, but if in protecting the innocent a few of my own must die…then that is the price that must be paid._

2.

Dark and cold it was. The only sounds she could hear were that of her own breathing and the crunching of snow beneath her feet, which made her loneliness so much more evident. Where was she? What had become of her?

The barren white landscape that was laid out before her should have been beautiful, but in the night, and with the atmosphere of complete helplessness, it was most dreary. The cold…she couldn't feel it, but she knew it was there. She could see the snow all around her, but she couldn't feel it. She couldn't feel anything. That was what frightened her most.

_What happened? Where am I? The Azadi! That assassin! He allowed his men to stab me… and I fell…wet…then…nothing…_

_WHERE AM I?!_

Panic seized her and she looked about, calling out as if anyone could hear her.

"HELP ME?!"

The sound of footsteps alerted her to someone's approach from behind her, and she whirled to face a tan skinned man. The appearance of this man should have frightened her, but she felt at once at peace.

"Who…are you?"

"That does not matter, dear one. What matters is that you have come to tell a story, have you not?"

"Have…I? I don't know where I am."

"You are…"

His voice cut off as his expression grew alarmed, his eyes trained on her body, her focus being her arms. In surprise, she looked down to see she was fading away, bit by bit.

"What's….what's happening to me?!"

He opened his mouth to speak, but then was gone.

A panicked shout came from her lips as she jolted upright in bed, chest rising and falling from panicked breath. Looking about in fear momentarily, she began to relax as she noticed the familiar surroundings that made up her personal quarters. A sigh and a groan emerged from her throat and she rubbed her forehead. The second night in a row…and the same dream…

_No…not dream. You know all to well what that was. That was no dream._

A cool cloth pressed to her head caused her to start, and then she recognized the pudgy hand that held the cloth to her forehead, and more importantly the person attached to the hand.

"Benrime…how long have you been here?"

"You make quite a racket when you dream like that. Are you alright, dear? At the moment you seem worse off than I ever thought about being."

April groaned again and rubbed her forehead. "A lot has happened since your capture. It would take a long time to catch you up on the details."

"Catch me up on the details? That's Stark talk."

"I'm sorry Benrime…It's…a long story."

"I'm from Arcadia, child. We love long stories."

She would have found that mildly amusing if she didn't know it was completely true.

"I'm sure you already heard about the incident at camp."

"They told me you were dead. Imagine my shock and relief when Kian informed me that you were alive and well."

"Tatya saved me...but I suppose I should start with what I know."

"Always easiest to start at the beginning…unless you are one of the Venar."

April smiled softly.

"Tatya is a shifter from Stark. She had the misfortune of shifting right to the spot where the Azadi let my body drop. She brought me back to life and with help from her friend Kirin; they nursed me back to health. Kirin was a member of the rebels, but he had been out of the area, scouting out recruits when the attack occurred. It was with his help I was able to rebuild what you have seen. Tatya runs the warriors as my second in command. Other than me…she's the only one they listen to now."

"And what about the assassin…why is he here?"

April's proverbial hackles rose at the mere mention of the man, but now it wasn't as much because of the aggravation of dealing with him as it was that she was beginning to feel everyone was questioning her decisions. Did no one trust her?

"I had him brought here to try and gain his aid in fighting the Azadi. He has an inside view of how they operate. He's been…"

"Reluctant? Is that no surprise, child?"

"Not a surprise, no. But irritating as hell, yes."

Benrime offered a warm smile and a chuckle. "Child, the Balance wasn't made in a day. You must have patience if you expect to win his help…or is it more than his help you are looking for?"

Again, April grew tense. Another topic she did not like hearing about.

_Why is it everyone in this camp thinks that Azadi and I are having a love affair? Is there nothing else to think about in this time of impending war? I feel like I'm living in a soap opera…_

She groaned and rubbed her head again. "Benrime, he's practically my enemy. He's all yours if you want him; I'm not interested. I have a war to plan for; I don't have time for the 'two ships passing in the night' thing."

"Alright, alright, child. I know when to leave it well enough alone. I pray you know what you are doing, April. Bringing him here…"

"Is dangerous, I know. He hasn't exactly sworn loyalty to me, not that I'd expect that from him…but the old fight seems to have gone out of him. He's not…pushing back against the idea of helping as much as he had before. Perhaps he's finally seeing and understanding what I was trying to beat into his thick head."

_Then again…maybe not._

"Well, he saved my life, and Kirin's. That so far works in his favor." Benrime said, though April could sense the doubt in her voice, as if a 'but' was coming.

April sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Don't worry, Benrime…I'm not going to let these men suffer another defeat. We have to do some good this time…find some way to pay the Azadi back for what they did to the innocent women and children of that camp."

Benrime frowned and her kind eyes watched April with concern. The ex-shifter could guess quite well what was going through the older woman's mind. Benrime had always wanted peace of some kind. Though she had done her best to support the rebels, she had also stood by her ideas that violence and revenge were not always the solution. Although April agreed with this, and longed for a peaceful conclusion to the problems they were facing…the likelihood of peace at this stage was slim to none.

_First the Vanguard…then the Tyren…and then the Azadi. Marcuria has fallen prey to every power-hungry empire that comes along. It's time to take back control. It's time that Marcuria spoke for itself for once. This land should have the choice to be free, just like any other. Those with magic should be allowed to practice. Those who believe differently should still be allowed to worship their faith. Tyranny and oppression will always be fought as long as someone in the world has a voice against it. That is why the Azadi are afraid of me. Not because I can wield a sword. They are more afraid of a full-fledged uprising than anything else._

"April, child, have you heard a word I've said?"

April shook her head to clear the cobwebs and looked up at Benrime in surprise, only to realize she had been staring off into space and lost in thought for several minutes.

"I'm sorry, Benrime…"

"I understand, child. You have a lot on your mind. And you're tired. You should try to sleep, dear—"

"—I can't see that happening after that nightmare I had to put up with…"

"What exactly did you see, dear child?"

April looked over the woman's pleasant face. She had decided that telling anyone about what she had seen would have immediately placed doubts on her as to her sanity…and yet she really wanted to tell her. These are things that normally she would have talked to Tatya about, but her second in command was not here…she was off in that place.

_Stark. I wish I could have sent myself in her place. She missed the deadline for coming back…is she alright? Is she dead? If only there was some way to get in contact with her and find out how things are going…_

April closed her eyes a moment and rubbed at them with her fingers, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees and leaning forward gently to stretch her back out. Allowing another sigh to escape her, she sat up and allowed the reluctance to show on her face, but still spoke.

"Right after they stabbed me… I saw… something. I'm not exactly sure how to explain it. Do the people of Arcadia believe in a heaven or hell? Is it possible the guardian created a realm where people go to die?"

"What a strange question…what exactly did you see?"

"A snowy landscape, and a tanned man who asked me if I was there to tell a story. I get the feeling that my disappearing from that place wasn't normal…He looked quite shocked when I just vanished before his eyes. The only thing that I can use to explain my vanishing from that place is that Tatya brought me back…that's…why I think I was dead. No one would confirm nor deny it. Tatya and Kirin both kept tight-lipped about it. I think I'm starting to understand why."

Benrime shook her head. "I have never heard stories of such a place. But if you would like, I can slip into Marcuria…speak with—"

April shook her head vigorously and scratched her head as she felt an itch crawl its way up her neck and across her skull. "Not a good idea. If the Azadi see you they will only attempt to capture you again." She left out the part about The Journeyman. No doubt it was in disrepair, even shambles, and she didn't want her friend seeing it like that. "Right now Marcuria is going to be a danger zone, with Elias dead, you and Kian having evaded capture…Kian for the second time…"

"Then what will you do?"

"I have a few people I would trust with such a mission. I can send one of them…but I don't think I will. Not now. The Azadi are searching for us, for remnants of the rebellion that they now know are still at least partially active. I had hoped to sneak about under their nose without their knowledge, but it seems that Elias has ruined that plan."

"It was bound to happen sooner or later, April…war is upon this land."

April nodded in solemn agreement, feeling the frown on her face deepen. "And when it happens, we have to be prepared for it. I can't watch those willing to stand up against these odds fail and die. Not this time."

"Where is your second now? Don't you need her at a time like this?"

"I…sent her to Stark."

"What? At a time like this?? Why???"

"There is some unfinished business that needed attending, and I don't have the ability to shift. There was no one else who could take the mission that I trusted. Tatya is proficient in many tasks, she's smart, quick, and she makes good decisions on how to act and when. I trust her with my life, and there are few I would trust with that anymore."

"That unfinished business you are talking about is Miss Castillo, isn't it?"

April nodded solemnly again, reaching her hands towards the roof of the tent in a stretch, and then swinging her legs around to the edge of the bed to get up.

"Yes. I would have expected her to come back again…but she hasn't. Not in a year."

"Maybe she cannot come back."

"Possibly, but I had to send Tatya. I have to know. A suspicion has been hovering at the back of my mind… that the problems going on in Stark are not over… and that Zoe was involved in something extremely dangerous. Now she's cut off contact. Which might mean either she doesn't want to risk her life…which I find unlikely considering all the trouble she went through to find me…or she's unable to come here."

"Did she lose her ability to shift too, perhaps?"

April shook her head. "She never had it. I don't know what it is, Benrime, but she didn't shift. When Na'ane tried to teach her to shift using her magic…she simply vanished. Right out of her clothes."

'That is strange…"

"You're telling me. That's why I sent Tatya. This has to be checked into. I have a nagging suspicion that the problems I was having with the Church of Voltec…aren't over."

"I thought they would have fallen apart by now…it's been ten years."

April shook her head and stood, reaching for a shirt and pulling it on. "I thought so too, but all the information that Zoe had babbled on about… it sounds like something that the Church would have their hands in. Besides…when was anything that easy? Keeping in mind what I went through with them the first time, if they're up to something as I feel they might be…Gordon said that it wasn't my job to protect the balance anymore…but…something tells me this isn't quite over yet. I get the feeling I'm supposed to be doing something…anything."

"The Guardian told you that your protection of the balance is done…and you don't believe him?"

Buttoning the shirt, April gave a toss of her head to move her hair out of her eyes in order to see better. "Crazy, I know…but I just have to know. If nearly dying…or dying for the matter…taught me anything, it's that I can't take everything I'm told for granted. And I certainly can't let go of my suspicions simply because the naked man in the blue light told me so."

Benrime nodded. "You must do what you feel is right…your instincts will help you. Perhaps that is why things have gone so wrong until recently…you're finally beginning to follow your instincts again. Sending Tatya to Stark…bringing the Azadi back here…most would consider those missions to have been insane, and futile. Yet you stood behind them." A smile spread across Benrime's jolly face. "Dear child, I do believe you've found your purpose again."

April blinked and stopped, hands still on the last button of her shirt. Her mind began to reel as she realized that what she had longed for…to feel needed…to have a purpose…was so easy to obtain.

_The Azadi isn't the only one who's been blind. I've been walking around in a daze for so long…ten years can do that to a person. After the balance was saved…I felt like it was all over and began questioning why I was even alive, when the truth was staring me in the face. The balance isn't safe…what Gordon told me…it can't be true. If the balance were safe…why would this feeling have returned to me… the one I had in Stark when those strange events started to occur. The feeling that something is not quite right; like pins and needles on the back of my arms and neck…something is very…very wrong. Why would the guardian lie? Did he lie?_

"April?"

April started out of her thoughts again and apologized with a peevish mutter. Finishing the last button, she pulled on a pair of pants, buttoning and then buckling them.

"Do you think the guardian lied to you?"

"I…don't know at this point. I don't think that Gordon would fill my head with lies. Maybe he was…there are only two things I can think might have happened. Either someone is misleading him…which would take a great deal of power. Or…he merely told me what I wanted to hear at the time."

"I suppose the real question is…what did you really want to hear?"

April thought this over, but there was no answer that she could give. Her lips parted to speak, but she never got a word out.

"Raven…Kirin has awakened."

3.

His wound was being re-bandaged when they entered the medical tent to check up on him. From the looks on their faces, Kirin could see that they had all been worried about him, though the thought of why never crossed his mind.

"How are you?" His leader asked, approaching the cot with purpose. There was something in her eyes…resolve. Something had changed while he had been out.

"Well enough. I should be able to move about regularly soon. Right now, the healer is still concerned with me tearing my wounds." He could hear the annoyance in his own voice, but he didn't care. Three weeks he had been asleep….or on the border of sleep and something else. During this time, he might have missed countless things…information on Tatya….something important, and yet instead of informing him on what he had missed… they were standing there staring at him.

"Any news on Tatya…Elias…anything?"

"Elias is dead." The voice came from the back of the tent. The Azadi…Kian. He hadn't even realized the man was there, and turned gently to look at him, being careful of his wounds.

"Dead?" His voice echoed the last word out of the Azadi's mouth. "Benrime?"

"I'm fine, Kirin." Benrime approached and sat down at the end of the bed. "And no…I didn't have a hand in killing that man…though from what I hear he betrayed the rebels…and it was only narrow luck that he didn't kill you…so I will shed no tears for him."

"Then who…"

Kirin caught sight of April, and she motioned with her head slightly and then her eyes…over to Kian. He knew he couldn't hide the disbelief on his face, and didn't bother to try.

"Miss Saliman is right. It was only luck that kept you alive. I had to make a choice, flee or fight. Fleeing with that archer at our back would have been far too dangerous. I know he was a kinsman…"

_Is he going to apologize for protecting an innocent life?_

Kirin emphatically shook his head, not allowing him to finish his apology. "No kinsman of ours would dare betray us. It may have been –must have been- his intention from the start. You protected Benrime, and were able to bring her safely back here. You didn't betray us to them…those tasks alone set you apart from your…would-be peers. I think that Raven would agree."

"I do." She murmured quietly. "But we can talk about all of this later. Now that you are awake, we need to make plans to move the camp."

Kirin frowned. It bothered him immensely that she would be so insistent we move camp even though it might endanger Tatya, but when he himself was injured they did not move camp. "Why wasn't it already…"

"We were awaiting supplies…news…and for you to awaken. With my second in command away on assignment, I need you're help, and moving you around in your state might have killed you."

The voices of the men were raised in anger.

"How long must we run from what needs to be done?!"

"Are we men or dogs?!"

Kian watched by Benrime's side as the men shouted and shook their fists at their leader. Their rage no longer surprised him. The need for revenge, for 'justice' ran strong. It wasn't difficult to see that they felt April was holding them back; intentionally keeping them from their goal. What did surprise him was the way April surveyed them calmly and without frustration. Kian regarded the woman that stood before them with purpose, and could not help but admire her. She was strong…determined. Perhaps it was that and her dangerous use of words that made his people afraid of her.

_She has a will of her own, that's what they are afraid of. To think for yourself and make your own choices, to go your own way and not follow the ideals of a single group or a single person…these things are not the Azadi's way. We believe so heavily in strength through unity and forget the individual and the power that an individual has. That is why my people fear her. It is not her way with a blade, but her spirit and her iron will. She will not bow to them. She will not bend. She stands before the Azadi just as she stands before her own men. As still and unmoving as an ancient tree. These traits can work in her favor, but if she is unwilling to make changes to make things work, the traits that could be her powerful ally could be her worst enemy._

"Our time for battling the Azadi will come…but there are more important matters at hand. There is the health and wellbeing of our comrades. Ensure the safety of the women and children that remain with us even though there is danger. Remember that we must not only think of ourselves and of revenge, but of those around us. Everything we do is to benefit them. Everything we do could cause them harm. We cannot go about this without thinking of what the consequences will be. We have lost before because we ran headlong into battle. If we are to beat them, we must understand them. We must strategize. Strategizing will take time, and it will take us working together."

"And what of the Apostle?! You let walk about this camp as if he owns it!? Is he a prisoner or not?!"

"Your strategies take too long! What of the women and children whose crypts were made of the swamps where the old camp stood?! Where is the justice for them?"

Kian watched her expression as it grew momentarily aggravated. Even with her strength, he could see she was also tired. Tired of the fighting, of the endless challenges she faced as leader, and tired of having her ideas questioned. It was the plight of any leader, that inevitably one or more of your followers would question your decisions and accuse you for their shortcomings.

"I will deal with the Apostle. He is no concern to you."

"If he will not swear his loyalty to us, we should kill him and leave him for the wild animals!"

Kian felt his own jaw tighten. He felt a small, pudgy hand on his forearm and looked over to see that Benrime was looking up at him with a soft and reassuring expression. She gave a small nod as if to say 'it will be alright'.

_How could a woman who had been treated so badly by my people treat me with such kindness. If she knew what had been done to her Inn, would she still treat me as she was? Would she turn against me as the others have?_

"ENOUGH!" April shouted above the din.

The entirety of the congregation went quiet. Not even the chirping of birds could be heard, nor the small animals in the brush; only the rustling of the leaves on the wind. April offered another sigh.

"I will deal with the Apostle. You have your orders. Make ready to leave camp immediately."

With that, she turned and headed off to her tent. The men shouted angrily a bit more and then grumbled on their way to do as she had instructed.

_Deep down they know she is right. Though they are common-folk, many of them are not the fools they show themselves to be. These courageous men are as tired as their leader. They want to go home to their families, to the life they knew before the Azadi._

_No matter how much good we did when we chased out the Tyren, we've merely replaced them with another dominating government who hopes to destroy them. We've been fed the lies that we are trying to purify them, but the more we try, the more they push back. In the end, this will only bring pain to both sides…and more to the rebels and those in Marcuria than anyone else._

_What could the Six stand to gain from these lies? Do the Six even know this is going on?_

Deep down he knew that they must. They had to. The Six knew everything. He felt a tug at his arm and looked to Benrime, seeing that she was attempting to guide him away from the meeting area.

"Come. We must talk."

Benrime regarded the young man as he sat down on a log by the fire. She could tell that the meeting had bothered him. It amazed her that someone who had been with the Azadi so long could allow his emotions to show so clearly on his face. Truthfully, the entire man amazed him. Though he was still an enemy to the rebels; the fact that he so willingly stayed in an environment that was hostile towards him when he might easily steal away in the dead of night surprised her.

_I can only imagine what he must be going through. To find out everything you've been raised to believe is a lie…to spend you're entire life fighting for a cause only to find out that you've become a monster in the eyes of the people. To learn that your enemies do not have enough respect for you, that they would just as soon spit on your corpse as shake your hand...I can't imagine living in a world where I am hated by all. And now his own people want him dead. He is truly alone…_

"They will kill me if they get the chance." Kian murmured, watching the fire with a soft frown creasing his brow.

"Can you blame them? It was not long ago that you were in their place. It is difficult for those not educated in the plight of others to see past their own nose. What I mean to say is… they can't understand what you're going through anymore than you could understand what they were going through."

"Could? You think I understand now?"

Benrime nodded, regarding the man calmly, but not unfriendly. "I do. I think you have been around them enough and have had ample opportunity to see what they have been through and to better understand them. I suppose it is a shame that they cannot see past what has been done to them in order to better understand you. These are simple folk, and it is easy to forget that there are others in pain when you are in pain, is it not?"

Kian didn't bother to reply, and Benrime understood why. What point was there to remarking on what she had to say?

_It bothers him that no one is willing to accept him for who he is here. He doesn't want to admit it, but he does not like being associated with the monster the Azadi seem to have made him into. Not surprising. Who would want to be seen as a monster by the only society who hasn't seen fit to put him before the ax man's block?_

"You were an orphan…weren't you?"

Kian looked up at her in shock. "How did you—?"

"—I'm a very observant person. You don't seem quite as…faithful to the Azadi beliefs as those that I met while I was being held prisoner in that place."

"I do believe in the goddess."

"But you don't believe in what the Azadi are doing to the people of Marcuria…or at least you do not cling to it now that you have seen the trouble it has caused. You aren't a zealot."

"…I could have been called one…until I met…her."

"Is she the only reason you turned against your people?"

Kian sighed and ran a hand through his hair, regarding her for a moment as if assessing her or the question, or both. After a moment, he answered.

"April helped me think about things in a way I hadn't before. She opened my eyes to what was going on around me. If it hadn't been for her, I might have gone on blind to the tragedies that were being caused by my people…by me. She was willing to speak strongly and honestly to me in a way not many of the other folk had seen to do. She was not afraid of what I was. She is…opinionated."

"Yes…that is definitely a trait she is well known for."

Benrime eyed him as he answered her question, assessing what he was saying, trying to determine if he was just telling her what she wanted to hear. However no matter how long she looked at him; at his face and his eyes…she could find nothing that indicated he did not mean what he said.

_Either he means it…or he is an extremely good liar._

Something inside her tugged at her heart. She knew she shouldn't, but she felt badly for him, and she trusted him. She could sense his pain, it was almost palpable. His guilt seemed to swirl around him like a fog, always present even in moments when he should have been indignant.

"Why didn't you say anything when the men spoke ill of you?"

"What good could come of it… and they are right, are they not?"

"Perhaps they are, perhaps they aren't."

He sighed again. "Do you think I should swear my allegiance to the rebels? Forget everything I've lived for all these years?"

"I think you should do what you feel is right. But I also think that everyone could stand to see that there is room enough for more than one faith in this world. There should be ample room for the Balance and your Goddess. However, if people realized this… there would be no war…or at least there would be a few less. Whatever you decide to do, you should do it on your own time. Do not let anyone push you. If you rush into it, you can make mistakes."

"Do you think it would be a mistake for me to swear loyalty to them?"

"I think it would be a mistake for you to do it for the wrong reasons. If you are going to, do it because you want to, or because you believe in it. Not because someone else is forcing you, even April. She's a headstrong girl."

Kian nodded, smiling softly. "Yes…she is."

Benrime chuckled. "I had better go. It's time to tend to Kirin's bandages, and the doctor is resting."

Kian nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Saliman."

"Mark my words, Apostle. Make your own path." She stood and wandered off towards the medical tent.

4.

When Kian entered her tent without asking, her proverbial 'hackles' rose in irritation. Why did that man always seem to visit at the worst possible times? When it wasn't one thing, it was another. It was bad enough she had had to stand and face her men while they threw their concerns and her failings in her face…but now he was no doubt coming to start another fight.

_I need a vacation…_

As usual, she used her irritation in the only way she knew possible. She put it into her tone and her words. "What do –you- want? You hear to complain about my decisions too? I'm really not in the mood to hear anymore. I'm going to set up a complaint desk outside and start telling people to take a number."

Kian leaned against one of the support posts for the tent and regarded her calmly, not speaking. This only caused April further aggravation, and for a moment she actually wanted to pick up, and hurl, something at him.

"Have you had enough fun annoying my men and have chosen a new target? Or are you just bored?"

He sighed, soft and low, and shook his head. "I don't want to fight with you. Not now. There was enough shouting outside."

"Then why are you here?"

"What reason do you think I need to visit? Do I have to want to fight with you? Perhaps I just wished to see if you were alright. Why must you always assume the worst of me?"

April scoffed, slammed something down, shook her head, and approached. "If you would just satisfy the men by saying something, anything, to get them to trust you…we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. You're rigid decision to stick to your teachings is causing this tension, and you want to come and see if I'm alright? If you want to do me a favor, right now why don't you go walk off a cliff."

Kian's jaw tightened visibly. "I shouldn't have to bow to another's will any more than you should. You talk of how my people are forcing you to be something you aren't, forcing you to believe in something you don't…and yet you do the same thing to me."

"Oh no, you don't. You don't get to start playing the blame game."

"I'm not blaming you; I'm asking you to give me the time I need to make a decision."

"If I give you the time you need you'll –never- make a decision. By the time you've chosen a side my people will be laying dead at your feet!" She pitched a metal cup at him.

Kian ducked to the side and out of the way, the cup barely missing him, and clanking to the ground behind him. He moved in, grasping her wrists before she could throw something else. He gripped her wrists gently, not allowing her to get enough space to get away from him.

"Would you please calm down!?"

"Calm down! Calm down?!" She pulled with her arms, attempting to break free. "Let me go!"

"Would you please calm down, you're going to hurt yourself, or me… you're angry… I understand that… but please calm down…"

She continued to pull and twist, attempting to break away and put space between them. Kian pulled her close, wrapping his arms about her upper arms to keep her from moving, trying to make her be still while she continued to flail. He winced as she smacked and punched at him the best she could. But no matter how much she fought, he would not relinquish the control he had for that moment. This only made her angrier.

_I won't let him gain control of me…_

"April…"

There was something about the sound of his voice that forced her to pause. Something she'd never heard before. Anguish. Guilt. Desperation. She looked up at him, and they made eye contact. His eyes were filled with pain.

_Why is he looking at me like I've hurt him? What could he possibly be thinking about?_

Before she even knew what was happening, he dipped his head low, and slowly, gently captured her lips with his. In that moment, she felt like the air had been sucked from her lungs. Her knees weakened, her head swam.

_I should pull away… I shouldn't be…_

She knew she should push him away, that she should slap him. But there was something in this kiss. It seemed so sad… and yet at the same time so warm and familiar. Why did he seem so familiar to her? Why did they seem to know each other so well?

_I have to stop him…I…have…_

A sigh escaped him and he moved an arm, sliding a hand up her back to cup the back of her head. She couldn't stop a whimper from escaping her. She knew it wasn't right, what others would think if they saw, if they knew…but for the life of her she couldn't stop him. He held her so softly; he was so gentle with her…It almost frightened her. Her heart thundered in her ears, she felt dizzy and confused, and yet safe…safe in his embrace.

_Why…why do I feel this way…who –is- this man…?_

With a gasp, as if suddenly coming to the realization of what he was doing, he pulled back and put space between them, and the warm feeling went away, leaving her cold and somewhat empty.

"I…I'm sorry…" His expression shifted between sadness, guilt, and then nothing.

April's heart sunk, and she turned away. "Just go."

"I…"

"Just go."

She kept her voice devoid of all emotion. She heard the fluttering rustle of the tent's opening, and she knew then that she was alone in the room. She sunk into a chair.

_I can't be attracted to him. He's the enemy. This can't be happening. It doesn't matter that his people have turned their back on him. In his own mind he is still an Apostle to the Azadi. He still clings to their beliefs as if they are the very air he breathes. I can't let this happen…I can't…_

And yet, even though she knew she could tell herself that a million times, she knew it wasn't true. Whether she liked it or not, he had kissed her. And whether she had liked it or not, she had let him. He was slowly wiggling his way into her heart somehow, and now that he had come this far… she knew that there would be no stopping him. She glanced up at the tent's ceiling, as if gazing to the sky.

"This is all your fault, you know?"

"April…are you alright?" Benrime's concerned voice called out to her as she entered the tent. "The Apostle looked upset. He didn't harm you, did he?"

"N…no."

Benrime must have heard the nervous tremble in April's voice, for she gently grasped and turned April to face her, looking up at her face. "Child, something is wrong, isn't it?"

"Nothing is wrong, Benrime. I don't want to talk about it right now."

She knew by the look on Benrime's face that she was seeing right through her. Benrime had always had the knack of knowing more about you or about what you were thinking than she should have. Some people thought that she had magic herself. April had always believed she just understood people… and had good instincts.

"April…" There was a definite ring of warning to her voice.

"He…kissed me."

"April!" She hissed in a whisper.

"I know! I know!" April whispered back. "I didn't mean for it to happen… I don't think even –he- meant for it to happen… he freaked out…"

"Don't get too close to him, child. He could do you more harm than good."

"I know. It won't happen again."

"How can you be so sure? April, dear, there is definitely chemistry between the two of you. Anyone would have to be a fool not to see it. Considering what you've told be about how he seems to recognize you from somewhere…it isn't all that surprising that something is happening between you. But make sure you don't fall into a spider's web. The Apostle cannot be trusted."

"You don't trust him?"

She sighed. "He is a good man, and I feel deep in my bones he will do the right thing in the end, but I mean trust him with your heart. You've been hurt so many times because you let yourself get carried away with your hopes…don't let your hopes and dreams rule you and cloud your better judgment. Your men need you. They would be furious to know that anything at all happened between you two. It would confirm their worst fears, or at least reinforce them. They already think you have been swayed by Kian. Don't let that become truth."

April felt a sigh escape her and she shook her head.

_I'm not trying to get involved with the Apostle, Benrime. I'm trying not to feel anything at all towards him. He is still my enemy, whether he is cooperating or not. He is unwilling to help us; showing me that he still feels loyalty to those who fed him lies and turned him into a monster._

"Do what you feel needs to be done, April. All I ask is that you think before you make a decision. As you said outside…we must all think of the consequences of our actions."

"I know."

"Benrime is right."

April and Benrime both looked towards the entrance of the tent. Kirin stood in the doorway, supported by a wooden staff that one of the carpenters had carved out of a thick tree branch for him.

"Kirin…you shouldn't trespass on others conversations." Benrime reprimanded him calmly.

Kirin scratched the back of his head nervously and looked apologetically at April for a moment before he shook his head. "I think he's a good guy, April. But now isn't a time for romance. War is impending, and eventually he's going to have to choose a side. If you bind yourself to him, let your feelings conquer you, and he chooses the Azadi…You'd be heartbroken. You'd be angry. You'd be unfit to lead because your mind would turn to doing harm to the one who had hurt you. Trust me, I've been there. Tatya stopped me from doing just that. Don't walk that same path."

April shook her head and sunk into a chair. "It's not that simple, Kirin. I'm not attempting to have feelings for the Apostle. I'm not trying to feel anything at all for him. At the moment, he is still a threat to us. I don't understand why these feelings have presented themselves. Do you both think I'm stupid enough to act like a daffy blonde at a time like this?"

"A daffy blonde?" Benrime looked confused.

"Think village idiot." Kirin explained the best way he could.

"Oh." Benrime seemed to go deep into thought.

April could not help but laugh at this. Once her laughter had subsided, she shook her head again. "I'm not going to be stupid about this. Both of you can be reassured by that."

Benrime nodded. "I know you'll make the right decision in the end." She glanced to Kirin and shook her head. "And you could learn to take a page from your own book, Kirin. You know Tatya does not feel the same way as you. You should find yourself a nice farming woman."

Kirin grinned. "Are you making a proposition, Benrime?"

Benrime scoffed and gave Kirin a gentle -fwap- with her hand before leaving the tent. April chuckled again.

"Promise me something." Kirin murmured quietly after Benrime was well out of sight.

"What's that?"

"Use your head. Whatever you do… don't be dumb about it. I've lost enough friends already. I don't want to lose any more."

Kirin didn't even give April a chance to answer. He turned and walked out, leaving her alone.


End file.
